The Proud Valley

The Proud Valley is a 1940 Ealing Studios film starring Paul Robeson. Filmed in the South Wales coalfield, the principal Welsh coal mining area, the film is about a seaman who joins a mining community. It includes their passion for singing as well as the dangers and precariousness of working in a mine. Plot David Goliath is an African-American sailor who deserts his ship when it arrives in Wales. He climbs onto the back of a freight train and meets Bert, who is work-shy and scoffs at David's determination to seek employment. The train arrives at a small mining town and the two men briefly attempt to busk before being scolded by Mrs Parry for making unpleasant noise outside her shop. They stop outside a building where a male choir are rehearsing and David begins singing along. The choir conductor, Dick Parry, is determined to make David a member and offers him lodgings at his house. Despite his wife, Mrs Parry, objecting to the idea, her protests are moot when their sons and daughters side with their father. Dick gets David a job as a miner to work along with him and his eldest son Emlyn, much to the racist objections of one of the workers, but Dick and David accidentally mine close to gas, causing a fire, in which many miners perish. Emlyn was not present at the site that morning and rushes into the mine as a rescuer; David carries Dick out of the fire but is unable to save him. A month later, Dick's choir appears at a competition but only David performs for Dick's memory. The mine has been closed since the disaster and the rest of the miners are reduced to gathering coal from the top of a spoil heap, but they are unable to make the same amount of money that the mine had paid them and many have to claim social benefits. A year later, Mrs Parry is struggling with five children to care for and is visited by Mrs Owen—the mother of Emlyn's fiancée, Gwen—who snaps that Gwen is not allowed marry Emlyn because he cannot make enough money to look after her. Gwen later sneaks to the Parry house and tells Emlyn that she would marry him no matter his income, which gives Emlyn the idea to march to London and demand that the government reopens the mine. Emlyn takes David and two other miners and they walk to London, and arrive the day after Germany invaded Poland. The British government are busy focusing on building up the army and reopen the mine to send the gatecrashers away.