The Proud Valley

Pen Tennyson directs this early Ealing Studios drama set in a Welsh coal mining valley. Paul Robeson stars as David Goliath, a charismatic African-American seaman who washes up in a small mining village in Wales. There, he finds work alongside the miners down the pit, and his magnificent singing voice attracts the attention of local choir director Dick Parry (Simon Lack), who has ambitions of winning the national choir contest on the strength of Goliath's talent. However, a mining disaster puts both of these occupations on hold, and Goliath rouses a group of activists to march to London in the hope of reopening the mine in time to serve the nation's wartime needs.