Les Naufragés de la vie

Love On the Dole gives you an idea on what life was like in the North West in 1930, during the Depression. This is quite a good movie.

It focuses on a family of four where the dad works in a coal mine. The daughter works in a mill and falls in love with a factory worker, but is killed after getting involved in a fight during a demonstration. She then meets someone else and she gets him to give jobs to her dad and brother, who have both been made redundant.

This movie reminds me of early episodes of Coronation Street that I've seen, even though it was made long before that soap was first broadcast (and both long before I was born!).

The cast includes Deborah Kerr and Clifford Evans.

If you like old British movies, this is recommended.

Rating: 3 and a half stars out of 5.

A British drama; A story set in Salford, England, during the depression. A proud miner struggles to provide for his family, while his daughter fends off the advances of two men: a kindly Labour Party representative and an oily bookmaker. Tightly scripted and deeply affecting, it deals with the theme of a classic 1930s dilemma: escape poverty or keep faith with the morality of her class and Lancashire values. The film resonates with a strong feeling for the genuine harshness and brutal truths of poverty and unemployment. There are all-round good performances, especially by Deborah Kerr, who is subtly affecting in her portrayal of personal conflict, and Geoffrey Hibbert, who plays his part with innocence and remarkable poignance. While the film has a gloomy feel, it also has comic relief as well as pathos, and there is a heartfelt feeling throughout the different subplots that avoids mawkishness and over-sentimentality. As an aside, this was an adaptation of the Walter Greenwood novel, scripted by himself, and was censored up until its release for its "sordid" story and comment on social conditions. The film reinforced the view at the time that Britain and its working classes had survived such hardships and would survive others. The outbreak of war was one of the main catalysts for change in housing conditions in communities like Hanky Park due to full employment and a Labour Party landslide victory in 1946.

Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen have nothing on this! That this was released at the start of the war to boost morale seems bizarre. Superbly made - yes, engaging - yes but it's also one of the most miserable films I've ever seen.

This is not light entertainment - you don't want to watch this after a bad day at work. But if you want an absolutely gritty and authentic, albeit intense depiction of working class life in England in the early thirties then this is a must. It's as far removed from Hollywood or even Gainsborough escapism as imaginable. The weird logic in releasing this just as the horror of the war was beginning was that at least things are better than they were a few years ago. You'd never have got anything as critical of society as this being released in Nazi Germany, or even the USA at this time.

The title, Love On The Dole might suggest that this is a typical 1930s depression movie with a sweet young couple managing to find happiness against the backdrop of adversity: it's definitely not. As you'll realise if you make it through to the end, love in this context is trying to do what's right for those you love even if that's sacrificing your own chance of happiness. It's not a happy film but it does have a really positive message about the goodness of humanity. This isn't about a young couple in love, that type of love is a luxury that can't be afforded. Love and marriage and for many, even happiness is just something that exists at the pictures.

Although it's not easy viewing, it is compelling and gives a first-person, genuine insight into life in Manchester as the English Depression which began after the First World War became even worse as the effects of America's economic collapse hit our shores. Some of you might think that a few of the accents are more 'generic northern' than 1930s Manchester but the current Manc accent hadn't evolved by then so did sound a little more like West Yorkshire. Deborah Kerr in addition to doing a pretty passable Lancashire accent also gives an outstanding performance - you'd never guess this was her first major role.

If you like those 'kitchen sink dramas' which portrayed the social realism of the 1960s, see how it was done in the 30s.

A pre-kitchen-sink UK drama aiming to boost the morale of British Commonwealth during WWII, LOVE ON THE DOLE most importantly marks British cinema's grand dame, Deborah Kerr's very first leading role at a tender age of 19, who sports a cockney accent and still carries some dainty baby fat.

This 1930s Depression-era tale of woe pivots around the mews-dwelling Hardcastle household in Hanky Park, Salford, Mr. and Mrs. Hardcastle (Carney and Merrall, both are excellent in resisting falling into operatics despite of their stereotyped roles) live in immiseration with their two grown-up children Sally (Kerr) and Harry (Hibbert). When the employment rate hits the nadir, and many are taken off the dole by the Means Test, The Hardcastles' life is critically hobbled by their financial difficulty, Sally's impending matrimony with her sweetheart Larry (Evans), an ideal socialist, is abruptly brought to an untimely end by a public demonstration which goes violently awry; and Harry, after marrying his gravid wife Helen (Howard), has an extra burden to carry with the patter of tiny feet and slumps into despondency and despair when no job is available, especially after having won a jackpot and savored a transient flavor of living high on the hog.

But, like in any movies, there is always a way out, the comely Sally gets the attention of a seedy, middle-age bookmaker Sam Grundy (Cellier), so if she is willing to come across, Sam will reward her with material affluence, with two jobs for her father and younger brother, eventually Sally caves in after her marriage plan comes a cropper, after all, under that circumstance, any girl would love to trade their place with her. In her belated fur-donning transformation, Kerr makes an impassioned plea of Sally's inexorable moral corrupt, against her bemoaning mother and infuriated father, morality can be compromised, but dignity retains, no matter what, Ms. Kerr is definitely a revelation!

Journeyman director John Baxter does a presentable job in this studio-bound commodity, establishes its foggy environs and well-superimposed transitional sequences, but to this reviewer's lights, it is the risible quartet of biddies (silent film star Marie Ault makes a wonderful impression here) that gingers up the misery with their undimmed force of life, filtering scuttlebutt, passing snide comments and organizing séances, with subterranean libations to smooth over their troubled days, but when it comes to money, every darn pence counts.

There were a number of potential films that were unmade until war was declared,and this was one.Directed by one of the great British directors,John Baxter.Starring Deborah Kerr on her way to the top,without as claimed in another review a cockney accent.