History of the finest kind, the social and the cinematic -- and a convergence of both.
By contemporary standards it's over-long and over-wrought, yet its power to enthral rarely slips. And, damn it, it's cute: never mind the fallen woman's (Estelle Brody, magnificent) forlorn father, there's much more fun to be had watching the accurately rendered transition of the outraged mother into venal hag, desperate for the money and status her daughter's wedding now seems guaranteed to bring (and so compensate for the yesteryear failings of her husband -- yeah, back-story, and in 1927 too).
Above all though, it's subversive, a Brit film so upbeat it makes you wonder why Kazan ever bothered with 'Splendour In The Grass'.
Because the message of this movie is unencumbered by hysteria: sex is no big deal. Sex is good. Sex is normal. A girl takes a fancy to a fella, a fella takes a fancy to a girl. Falling in love: that's different. And getting wed. . . why, that's different again.
Signal end of empires, crash of cathedral roofs, collapse of an entire social order -- all of which undoubtedly happened, and in all of which works like 'Hindle Wakes' played a crucial role (and for which purpose they were expressly written in the first place).
So. . . watch Fanny having illicit fun in Llandudno (must be the first time anyone ever has, but that's by the way). And in amongst the dissolves and fades and SFX of eight decades past, consider too the brilliance of the inter-titles, the dialogue that's here presented with such phonetic accuracy that it's arguably the first, and last time, industrial Lancashire has been voiced so well on the silver screen.
Do not, however, actually listen to the movie: the 'modern' score created for it lacks resonance in every respect, a repetitive, aimless farrago that endlessly reprises a distinctly unappealing motif as if in hope that at some stage during the proceedings, what's happening on screen will actually chime with what's happening on the soundtrack.
That it never does would no doubt bring another smile to the face of the fabulous Fanny. . .
By contemporary standards it's over-long and over-wrought, yet its power to enthral rarely slips. And, damn it, it's cute: never mind the fallen woman's (Estelle Brody, magnificent) forlorn father, there's much more fun to be had watching the accurately rendered transition of the outraged mother into venal hag, desperate for the money and status her daughter's wedding now seems guaranteed to bring (and so compensate for the yesteryear failings of her husband -- yeah, back-story, and in 1927 too).
Above all though, it's subversive, a Brit film so upbeat it makes you wonder why Kazan ever bothered with 'Splendour In The Grass'.
Because the message of this movie is unencumbered by hysteria: sex is no big deal. Sex is good. Sex is normal. A girl takes a fancy to a fella, a fella takes a fancy to a girl. Falling in love: that's different. And getting wed. . . why, that's different again.
Signal end of empires, crash of cathedral roofs, collapse of an entire social order -- all of which undoubtedly happened, and in all of which works like 'Hindle Wakes' played a crucial role (and for which purpose they were expressly written in the first place).
So. . . watch Fanny having illicit fun in Llandudno (must be the first time anyone ever has, but that's by the way). And in amongst the dissolves and fades and SFX of eight decades past, consider too the brilliance of the inter-titles, the dialogue that's here presented with such phonetic accuracy that it's arguably the first, and last time, industrial Lancashire has been voiced so well on the silver screen.
Do not, however, actually listen to the movie: the 'modern' score created for it lacks resonance in every respect, a repetitive, aimless farrago that endlessly reprises a distinctly unappealing motif as if in hope that at some stage during the proceedings, what's happening on screen will actually chime with what's happening on the soundtrack.
That it never does would no doubt bring another smile to the face of the fabulous Fanny. . .