The Man Who Cried (TV 1993)

Abel Mason is a man caught in a loveless marriage with a harridan wife who constantly berates him and beats their son Dick. When the one woman he loves dies at the hands of her husband ... See full summary »

Director:

Michael Whyte

Writers:

Stan Barstow, Catherine Cookson (novel)

Stars:

Ciarán Hinds, Kate Buffery, Amanda Root

Cast

Credited cast:
Ciarán Hinds	...	Abel Mason
Kate Buffery	...	Florrie Donnelly
Amanda Root	...	Hilda Maxwell
Daniel Massey	...	Peter Maxwell
Gemma Craven	...	June
Angela Walsh	...	Lena Mason
Bobby Pattinson	...	Fred Donnelly
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Colin Brown	...	Benny Layton
Gary Catlin	...	Man in Church Hall
Heather Chapman	...	Woman in Park
Elspeth Charlton	...	Mrs. Burrows
Martin Crocker	...	Charles
Art Davies	...	Arthur Baines
Kerry Farley	...	Molly Burrows
Susan Field	...	Old Woman

Storyline

Abel Mason is a man caught in a loveless marriage with a harridan wife who constantly berates him and beats their son Dick. When the one woman he loves dies at the hands of her husband after he was sent a letter by Mason's wife, exposing the affair, Abel leaves her for good taking to the road and young Dick with him.

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Plot Keywords:

based on novel

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

UK

Also Known As:

Ein Mann kehrt heim

Filming Locations:

Dissington Hall, Northumberland, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Festival Film & Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

157 min 90 min (2 parts)

Color:

Color

User Reviews

soap where I grew to dislike all of the characters

Let me start by saying Catherine Cookson was a very popular British novelist who sold something like 100 million books during her career. If her books had been like this boiler plate TV production she would not have sold 100 books.

Here is the story: A man abruptly leaves a failed marriage and travels with his son to Northern England where he eventually has to marry again (and thus commit bigamy). Wife finds him....soap twists and turns abound--second wife Hilda discovers she is not her father's daughter etc etc....

The first half is by far the best...the boy Dick is played by a charismatic child actor he makes the first half. The second half of the series is lousy from the 2 dimensional rendition of war time England to just the way the screen writers condensed and parsed the novel--a common problem with book/movies.

Another problem for me was the Appalachian type sound track...it is incongruous to the location.

This is an over dramatized soap with below average production values. I blame the writers and a couple miscast characters.

One measure I have of soaps is if they make make me care about the characters... in the second half of this film I grew to dislike all of them. Beware!