Moviecut—Cathy Come Home

source: Cathy Come Home

Cathy Come Home

I have seen several excerpts from and read reviews on this film, but as a mother - I don't think I could watch this film from start to finish. I have seen this drama-documentary featured twice on shows such as Top 50 most emotional TV moments and again tonight on Top 50 best TV dramas (UK). I've looked up info and was just wondering if anyone (from across the water :) ) can confirm that some of "Cathy's" children,(child-actors in the film) had actually been taken into care, in reality.. I seem to remember a mention of something like that on one of those shows. I don't recall exactly, but seem to remember somebody speaking of a direct connection / link, of this sort. it's playing on my mind - if anyone can put me out of my misery-?

Intense and devastating. Tight closeups, an active camera always in the middle of everything. It's a claustrophobic world for Cathy after she marries and has 3 children, as she passes from an apartment to, eventually, a shelter, where her husband is not allowed to stay. "Cathy Come Home" can be found as one of the Special Features on the 2011 Criterion DVD of Loach's "Kes."

Everything about the drama has already been mentioned in previous reviews, but after 66 years this still packs a real punch. It is not comfortable viewing, this has a lot to do with the performances of Carol White and Ray Brooks as an ordinary likeable couple who find themselves in dire straits through no fault of their own. The drama focuses on the basic flaws in the housing system and the consequences on society for those with very little. This must have been one of the first to use the docu-drama style. If it hadn't been for the occasional familiar face one might be forgiven for thinking it was real.

A one-of-a-kind production that perhaps affected society more than any other. It's amusing to see that this TV production was part of THE WEDNESDAY PLAY because it couldn't feel like any less of a play if it tried. Instead it's heavily infused with documentary realism, so much so that you could be forgiven for thinking it was an actual documentary. Fresh and involving, it takes the 'kitchen sink' genre to the next level with its depictions of poverty and poor housing, and is expertly directed and acted throughout.

I didn't see this when it came out but remember friends discussing it. It would have been on the Australian Broadcasting Commission Channel 2. Some how it always stuck in my mind and finally ordered the DVD. England was in a bad way after the War. War costs money and sometimes you wonder who won the war (or battle) as Japan and Germany seem to come out like Phoenix out of a fire. What went horribly wrong that so many people were left homeless, landlords allowed to rent hovels and the "No Children" clause. Separated families, men in one lodgings, wife and children in another. No visitations after 8pm. Sex obviously didn't happen before that time.

What to say about this one? Heartbreaking, bleak, hopeless take on unemployment and overpopulation in England. It's not overindulging, it's not constructed, it just is, which makes it even worse to watch. Basically you'll be watching the slow disintegration of this young couple that falls in love and tries to start a family. What begins as a love story, ends up exposing a social security system, completely incapable of handling the overpopulation, or the people it affects. It's depression in film form. But to Loach's great credit, the point, the punch of this movie, never feels strained. If you liked this (if you thought it was good that is), My Name is Joe could be next Loach film you should look into.

Cathy Come Home is one of the bleaker movies i've ever seen. I remember some friends and i went to see a screening with the intention of going out to the bars afterwards. instead, we just all went home and drank alone... very powerful, definitely worth a look. Cathy's hope and youth is gradually sucked out of her as she has children and slides down the economic ladder until she is completely broken. the point of the film is that the institutions designed to help get women like cathy back on their feet were traps that insured the women would lose their children. the two most notable scenes occur a) at the end when the government tracks her down and rips her children from her arms, only to leave her there sobbing b) when angry townspeople burn their gyspy shanty-town to the ground. from the waning years of the English Free-Cinema.