The Valley of Decision

Pittsburgh at the end of the nineteenth century. Mary Rafferty comes from a poor family of steel mill workers. She takes a job as a maid in the house of the Scotts, who own the mill; her father is against it, because an accident at that same mill cost him his legs. Something begins between Mary and Paul, the son of the house. Tay Garnett's film is adapted from Marcia Davenport's 1942 novel. Greer Garson was nominated for the best actress Oscar for the part. Gregory Peck, Donald Crisp and Lionel Barrymore are also in the cast. The telling does not dress up the class divide: a strike at the mill determines the second half, and the love story is crushed inside that conflict.