as a Welshman living in South Wales - Carmarthenshire and not the Rhondda valley, all I can say is I'm heartily glad that Fox were unable to film in Wales itself. The Rhondda in 1940 was a bloody awful place. It's been cleaned up and all the slag has gone but I still wouldn't want to see a film made there. The fanciful, wildly inaccurate but very beautiful village they made in California is far more visually satisfying in the story telling. I don't even mind that there was only 1 Welshman in the cast. The Welsh accent does NOT travel well to my mind, unless you want to sound ridiculous. John Ford made a masterpiece of heart warming, heart wrenching beauty and I thank him and his cast from the bottom of my Welsh calon (heart)