"The Wednesday Play" Cathy Come Home (1966)

Director:

Ken Loach

Writers:

Jeremy Sandford (story)
Ken Loach (screenplay)

TV Series:

"The Wednesday Play" (1964)

Original Air Date:

16 November 1966 (Season 1, Episode 71)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

From the BBC's influential 'Wednesday Play' series. This tells the bleak tale of Cathy, who loses her home...

Plot Keywords:

Caravan | Hunger | Train Station | Fire | Homeless Shelter

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Carol White	...	Cathy Ward
Ray Brooks	...	Reg Ward
Winifred Dennis	...	Mrs. Ward
Wally Patch	...	Grandad
Adrienne Frame	...	Eileen
Emmett Hennessy	...	Johnny
Alec Coleman	...	Wedding Guest
Geoffrey Palmer	...	Property Agent
Gabrielle Hamilton	...	Welfare Officer
Phyllis Hickson	...	Mrs. Alley
Frank Veasey	...	Mr. Hodge
Barry Jackson	...	Rent Collector
James Benton	...	Man at Eviction
Ruth Kettlewell	...	Judge
John Baddeley	...	Housing Officer

Runtime:

75 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Certification:

UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Hammersmith, London, England, UK

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Trivia:

At an anniversary screening of Cathy Come Home, Ken Loach spoke of how the play had become an important part in making the debate on homelessness public. At the same event his producer, Tony Garnett, pointed out that the number of homeless in Britain had more than doubled "but Ken (Loach) and I now live in much more expensive houses."

Movie Connections:

Featured in A Personal History of British Cinema by Stephen Frears (1997) (TV)

The archetypal social propagandist film

This film is one of the TV drama that is often cited as one that showed how TV can be a force for good, how it can influence government policy and propel social change. It is a film that chronicled the trials and tribulations of a young mother who fell into poverty and homelessness. The screening of the film and the following impact that it had helped shaped public policy on housing, and spawned numerous other similar TV projects that highlighted social issues.

It was done with a good script and good actors, but the impact came from the faux documentary style that it adopted, such that the audience were made to imagine that what happened might just be real. There was no attempt at objectivity - Cathy was portrayed in sympathetic manner, nothing that happened can really be her fault, and the officialdom was unfeeling, severe and judgmental. The film is manipulative but many would argued that that's justified because the heart of the director was in the right place. It is the ultimate propagandist film, one that achieved its objective in spectacular fashion and showed aspiring directors how propaganda on social issues should be done.

But did the film actually do any good? It had a profound influence on housing policy and thus indirectly on the social development of Great Britain. For example, young mothers are now given priority on public housing, and this helped created a situation where young women think that having children would help them getting a council house. It is no accident that Britain has the highest incidence of teenage pregnancy in the Western world and this (and the consequent social problems created) can be argued to be the direct legacy of this film. Does it help with the problem of homelessness? Not a jot from the large number of homeless people we see in London and other British towns, a great proportion of them young men, and a situation that is probably worse than that of the 60's.

This film, and its many subsequent imitators, propagated the dishonest view that individuals who get into difficulties in life are largely blameless, and the government is the one to blame and the one to solve the problems. It, directly or indirectly, helped foster the view that individuals carry little responsibility for their own actions. It is, in essence, a "bad" film, one that no doubt done with good intention, but whose effect has been deleterious and damaging to society.