FAQ

No. The Corn is Green is based on a play of the same name by Welsh-born Emlyn Williams [1905-1987]. The play was semi-autobiographical as Williams was born into a working class family in Wales and rose to an appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his acting and screenwriting. The play was adapted for the movie by screenwriters Frank Cavett and Casey Robinson. A made-for-TV remake, Le blé est encore vert (1979), starring Katharine Hepburn in the role of Miss Moffat, was released in 1979.

Miss Moffat (Bette Davis) asks her potential students to write an essay about how they spent their vacation. Most of the essays are drivel, but one apparently talented boy, Morgan Evans (John Dall), writes about his experiences in the coal mines. 'When I walk in the dark,' he writes, 'I can touch with my hand where the corn is green.'

Morgan wins the scholarship to Oxford University, but when he finds out about his child with Bessy Watty (Joan Lorring), he vows to give up the scholarship in order to marry her, even though Bessy doesn't want the child and has plans to marry another man. Miss Moffat, having already agreed to adopt the child, convinces Morgan that Bessy would just leave him with the baby in a year's time and that he must pursue his studies at the university so that he can one day free the children from having to work in the mines. In addition, she makes him promise to go off to the university and never come back to see the child because 'that's the proper thing to do.' In the final scene, Morgan is hoisted up on the shoulders of the singing townsfolk and carried away while Miss Moffat, with tears in her eyes, watches him go.