Movie #258 ........................."The Valley of Decision"

Movie #258 "The Valley of Decision" was another Peck offering on TCM's Tribute to Gregory Peck day, and this time he is paired with Greer Garson who was really 12 years his senior. Anyway, she is a poor Irish immigrant's daughter living in Pittsburgh, with a dad (Lionel Barrymore --- Mr. Potter in "Wonderful Life" the same year, 1945) who hates the owner of the steel mills because he blames him for his wheelchair condition. Meanwhile, Mary (Greer) needs a job so she takes one as a maid in the owner's household, the Scotts. Paul Scott (Peck) falls in love with her, while the rest of the family likes her being around and she becomes one of the family ----- but she is worried that if they married, both families would never forgive them --- she's not good enough for him, her father hates him, etc. So she follows the daughter in the family to England and helps her in her new marriage. Back at the mill, Peck starts to deal with the uprising of the workers in the mill --- they are on strike ---- Mary comes back so that she and Paul can work on the strike --- tragedy strikes again, so that when they are just about to come together, they no longer can.........but for the romantics, there's a nice ending so it keeps you watching to the end. All the actors are very capable, and it's a nice epic love story, so I would give it 3.8 stars. Oh, almost forgot that one of the best things about the movie is seeing Jessica Tandy as a very young girl --- we so much know her better in stuff like "Driving Miss Daisy," and we forget that she started when she was so much younger. So I recommend it for a good black and white film.