That green valley? It’s near Malibu

BACK in 1941 and ‘42, audiences flocking to see “How Green Was My Valley,” John Ford’s multi-Oscar-winning version of Richard Llewellyn’s novel about a Welsh coal mining family, more than likely believed the production had been shot on location.

Initial plans had called for the drama to be filmed in Wales to cut costs, but that idea was scrapped because of World War II. So production designer Richard Day and art directors Nathan Juran and Thomas Little created an authentic 80-acre village at Brent’s Crags in the Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu.

According to the film’s press book, Day, who won the Oscar with Juran for “Green,” based the design for the village on Cerrig Ceinnen and the adjoining burg of Clyddach-cum Tawe, which are in the Rhondda Valley in Wales.

The evocative work of Juran and Day will be honored next Sunday at the Egyptian Theatre with a screening of “How Green Was My Valley,” followed by a discussion and Q&A; with Oscar-nominated production designers William Creber (“The Poseidon Adventure”) and John Muto (“Home Alone”).

The evening kicks off the American Cinematheque and the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame’s new monthly screening series, which will alternate between the Egyptian and the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica.

Two years ago, the Guild established its Hall of Fame for legendary production designers and art directors who’ve died, and it has since inducted 17 designers. Production designer Tom Walsh (“Desperate Housewives”), the president of the guild, says the film series “is a way of reaching a larger audience about the art of designing for film and TV.”

Other designers scheduled to be honored include John Box (“Doctor Zhivago”) at the Aero on April 29, John DeCuir (“My Cousin Rachel”) at the Egyptian on May 27 and Boris Leven (“New York, New York”) at the Aero on June 24.

Muto, who was a friend of Juran’s, says the set for “How Green Was My Valley” is a sterling example of “that thing Hollywood used to do and what we all have tried to do -- to have people accept it was the real thing.”

Austrian-born Juran was an architect before he entered films in 1937 as an art director. Besides winning the Oscar for “Green,” he was nominated for 1946’s “The Razor’s Edge.” He also designed such classics as “Body and Soul” and “Winchester ’73.” Juran turned to directing in the 1950s, helming such films as “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman,” “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” and episodes of “Lost in Space” and “The Time Tunnel.”

Day’s career spanned 40 years. He began in the silent era as Erich Von Stroheim’s designer in 1919-20. During the 1930s, he was the art director for Samuel Goldwyn, designing the majority of Goldwyn Studios’ productions for eight years including “Whoopee!,” “Dodsworth” and “The Goldwyn Follies.”

He also worked for United Artists, MGM and Warner Bros. and was a supervising art director for several years at 20th Century Fox, the studio that produced “Green.” Other credits include “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “On the Waterfront.” Nominated for 20 Oscars, he won seven.

Creber, whose father, Lewis Creber, was an art director at Fox, joined the studio in 1955 -- Day gave him his first big break as an assistant art director on the 1965 religious epic “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”

At the time, the “Green” set was still standing in Malibu, but “it had deteriorated,” Creber recalls. “In those days they weren’t using fiberglass. It was all plaster and pretty much expendable material.”

Eventually, most of the set was destroyed in a fire, and what remained was torn down.

During the studio system, a supervising art director like Day would generally assign projects to an art director, says Walsh. “It was a factory. The supervising art directors were running the machine. They would assign these projects. As leads of the department they were directly influencing what was going on. But Nathan would be the one who was working with Ford to figure out what it was he wanted.”

Recently, Creber went to the archives at Fox to look at photos of the set. “The concept of the set was just amazing,” he says, “the way the curve and the whole composition of it....

“Day had an idea that you designed for certain shots and the shots were compositions. The set was built in such a way that the cameraman could hardly miss [the shot].... You could see the whole thing had a whole balance to it. It had this wonderful natural composition.”

susan.king@latimes.com

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‘How Green Was My Valley’

Where: American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

When: 7:30 p.m. next Sunday

Price: $7 to $10

Contact: (323) 466-FILM

or go to www.americancinematheque.com