Hindle Wakes

This glitteringly effective celebration of the financial and sexual independence of Lancashire mill-girls, based on Stanley Houghton's celebrated play from 1912, must have aroused mixed feelings among working class audiences in the '30s, when unemployment was driving women into prostitution. While Sally Hardcastle of Love on the Dole sells her body and soul to the bookmaker, fierce, fiery Jenny Hawthorne (Chrystall) snubs her nose at marriage to the boss' son and gaily assures her parents that, 'I'm a Lancashire lass, and so long as there's weaving sheds in Lancashire I shall earn enough to keep me going'. Ironic that the economic basis of her independence had been eroded by the time the film appeared; but Jenny, storming out into the night in clogs and shawl, makes a splendidly indomitable icon of feminist independence.