The Proud Valley (1940)

This is a bit of an oddity of a true story about a Black American man who finds himself joining a Welsh mining community. Paul Robeson’s presence is strong here both in stature and voice, as the potential boon to the men’s choir is the catalyst for the community welcoming him into their fold. I have a lot of sympathy for mining towns where digging for coal is the only ‘good’ job available, but even eighty years ago, when there weren’t as many other options available, the work is ridiculously dangerous and difficult and questionably a win in the grand scale of things.