Overlooked Classics: Ken Loach's Cathy Come Home (1966)

***Carol White would have turned seventy years old today.  Here is a repost detailing one of her greatest      films in honor of the day.**                        Moving, meaningful, insightful, and downright life altering, Ken Loach’s extraordinary 1966 British teleplay Cathy Come Home is one of the most essential works of the sixties and its current unavailability is frustrating to say the least.

Starring an absolutely devastating Carol White, Cathy Come Home is a socially outraged production that takes a searing look at Britain’s homeless and housing problems of the mid sixties. The fact that many of the themes and issues it looks at are still relevant in not just Britain but all over the world make it as necessary in 2008 as it was in 1966.
Cathy Come Home started out as a play written by Jeremy Sandford, a well to do Londoner who had moved to the struggling Battersea district in the late fifties with his wife (Up The Junction author Nell Dunn) to research the living conditions of the lower and working classes. Cathy Come Home is not an exploitative piece at all though, and Sandford should be applauded for creating one of the most sympathetic and honest portrayals ever written about several of the key social problems that have plagued modern urban society since the Industrial Revolution.
The BBC expressed interest fairly quickly in Sandford’s heartbreaking story of a young married couple and their children who lose everything after the husband loses his job. Sanford's work needed just the right treatment though, and 29 year old television director Ken Loach was called in to handle what was destined to be the intense and delicate directorial duties.
Loach had been working in British television since the early sixties and was a year away from his extraordinary big screen debut (1967’s Poor Cow) when Cathy Come Home made its shattering debut on British television. Loach’s work on Cathy Come Home would set in motion one of the most consistently brilliant careers in all of modern cinema, and his trademark character studies filmed in a documentary style can all be traced back to his work on this 75 minute teleplay.
Sometimes called the 'British Bardot', 25 year old Carol White was already an established star in Britain when Cathy Come Home premiered in 1966. Long undervalued as an actress, White gives a historic tour-de-force performance as the teleplay’s doomed title character. Loach recalls on the DVD’s terrific and informative audio commentary that White threw herself into the role with a wild abandon and that the part took its toll on her personally throughout the three week shoot. The brilliant White would work again with Loach on the unforgettable Poor Cow (co-starring with Terence Stamp) and she would continue to prove herself as one of Britain’s great actors throughout the late sixties and early seventies. She would tragically pass away in the early nineties, and she has still yet to receive her due as a great actress and major figure in film history.
Character actor Ray Brooks had already worked with Loach in the series Z Cars and he turns in a solid and knowing performance as Cathy’s out of work husband Reg. The rest of the cast is filled out with some familiar British character actors and many first timers cast because Loach knew that some unfamiliar faces would give the film the kind of authentic look he was hoping to capture.
One of the most striking things about Cathy Come Home is the way Loach manages to combine an obvious narrative with such a seemingly free form documentary style. Other lesser filmmakers could spend years and millions of dollars and not match the intimate details Loach achieves here with a small television budget in just three weeks. The film, shot on location in 16mm, is an absolute visual wonder to behold. Filled with many sometimes unforgiving close-ups of his cast and shot starkly in black and white, Cathy Come Home manages that rare feat of not feeling like a film about real life but instead seems to somehow actually capture it.
Expertly mixing Stanford’s dialogue with improvisation, Cathy Come Home is a bravely grueling experience that manages to expose the fatal flaws seemingly inherent in the Social Systems it is exploring. Loach points out in the commentary that it was important for him to communicate to the audience that Cathy is a victim here, and the frustrating obstacles that continue to come her way are the system’s fault. The film presents a catastrophic snowball effect that takes everything away from the young title character from her family to her humanity, and one would have to be pretty heartless to not feel for her during her plight at the hands of a bureaucracy unable and unwilling to care for those in need.
While it’s often remembered for those mesmerizing close ups of a damaged and destroyed Carol White, Loach’s film (like Charles Burnett’s later 1977 production Killer of Sheep) manages to capture bits of daily life that just aren’t often seen in cinema. From families putting out their wash on lines connecting their run down tenement homes, to the fury of an elderly man being forced from his nearly unlivable shack, to children playing in an eerie graveyard like car dump, Cathy Come Home is one of the most penetrating looks at the fragility of the lower and working classes ever captured on film.
Cathy Come Home stunned the 12 million plus viewers who tuned in on the night of November 16’th 1966 to watch it. Outraged letters from viewers who had never seen the plight of the poor expressed so strongly or eloquently on film began to pour into the offices of both the BBC and British politicians, and by December the charity organization Shelter was started in order to combat Britain’s growing homeless problem. Outside of being one of the most shocking masterpieces of the cycle of films known as The British Kitchen Sink Dramas, Cathy Come Home is one of the rare films in history that directly caused social change.
Cathy Come Home was named the second greatest British Television program in history in a 2000 BFI poll. It came out on DVD on a British Region 2 disc in 2003 but I have been told it has now slipped out of print. It has never to my knowledge been available in the United States. The film's current unavailability is a real tragedy considering that many of the problems facing Cathy in the film are a reality for a countless number of people all over the world. Speaking to the BBC during an interview on the film, Ken Loach said, "We were saying ‘this happens and it shouldn’t’.” It continues to happen and it still shouldn't. Cathy Come Home is a major masterpiece and one of the most heroic pieces of cinema I have ever seen.

-Jeremy Richey, originally written in 2008-

Man Out of Time: Ulu Grosbard's Straight Time (1979)

***A repost in memory of Ulu Grosbard, who passed away over the weekend at the age of 83.***

I first saw STRAIGHT TIME (1979) as a teenager in the late eighties via a full frame, and worn out, VHS copy that I found at an Evansville, Indiana video store. I remembered it being a very strong drama with great performances by Dustin Hoffman and Theresa Russell but I had never considered it one of the great American films of the seventies. I recently revisited STRAIGHT TIME and found it one of the most devastating film experiences I have had in a long time. This movie jolted me in ways very few films do anymore.

Dustin Hoffman gives one of the great American performances as Max Dembo, a persistent felon who has been let out of prison on parole after serving six years for armed robbery. Max explains early on that he just wants what everyman wants, a place to live, a good job, a woman who loves him. After being busted again, this time unfairly, Max goes on an angry and frustrated rampage of crime and in the process loses the beautiful woman who loves him, his freedom and finally himself. I was so engrossed by STRAIGHT TIME and yet, at times, I just wanted to look away as I knew that the outcome of Max's life was doomed from the opening frame on.



STRAIGHT TIME was directed by Ulu Grosbard from a script by real life bank robber Edward Bunker. Michael Mann had an uncredited hand in the script and his work on this film surely informed his own later masterpieces like THIEF and HEAT. Bunker knew the life and it is this honesty that really informs STRAIGHT TIME and elevates it above a routine crime film.

David Shire delivers one of his most memorable scores here and it is the equal to some of his best work from the seventies. Unfortunately it appears a full soundtrack was never released. Underrated BOBBY DEERFIELD Production Designer Stephen B. Grimes also deserves a special mention for his work on Dembo's depressing little rent by the week room and for Russell's incredibly natural looking apartment where Max manages to find a little peace and warmth. Legendary EXORCIST cinematographer Owen Roizman provides the film with the notable sun burned and grimy look that is especially effective in the films breathless Beverly Hills chase sequence and the eerie final shots.

Hoffman had originally wanted to direct STRAIGHT TIME but problems with the studio brought this to a halt after just a few days. Grosbard had a less than prolific but interesting career. He had previously worked with Hoffman on WHO IS HARRY KELLERMAN AND WHY IS HE SAYING THOSE TERRIBLE THINGS ABOUT ME? and he would later unleash Jennifer Jason Leigh in one of her great performances in GEORGIA. His work on STRAIGHT TIME is frankly quite remarkable. This doesn't feel like a Hollywood studio film, it has a real authenticity about it that comes through in every shot. It is a mesmerizing work about a lost and haunted man who is out of options and very much out of time.



Theresa Russell had just turned twenty when she shot STRAIGHT TIME. It was her first major role after Elia Kazan's 1976 film of THE LAST TYCOON and she proves herself as one of the great actors to come out of the seventies here. Vulnerable and yet projecting an undeniable strength, the young Russell matches Hoffman's powerful portrayal every step of the way. She would only get better and by the time she shot Nicolas Roeg's BAD TIMING in 1979, there were few American actresses who could inject a role with more intelligence and emotion than Theresa Russell could. STRAIGHT TIME remains one of the great roles in what should have been a much more distinguished career for the undervalued Russell. The rest of the cast is noteworthy as well and includes an astonishing Gary Busey, Harry Dean Stanton and a searing M. Emmet Walsh as the terrifying parole officer who seems bent on sucking all of the remaining life out of Dembo.

The film belongs to Hoffman though. I recently wrote that MARATHON MAN was perhaps his greatest performance but after re watching STRAIGHT TIME it seems clear to me that his possession of Max Dembo is his finest two hours. It's right up there with many of the seventies most iconic and brilliantly realized roles, which includes Pacino in SERPICO, De Niro in TAXI DRIVER and Hackman in NIGHT MOVES. I find Hoffman's work as Dembo really wrenching and downright draining. You like this guy even when he is fucking up beyond belief towards the end, and his disintegration is absolutely heartbreaking. Hoffman delivers one of the most majestic essays on human loss and personal failing ever put on film in STRAIGHT TIME. Days later, it is still a performance that I can't stop thinking about.



STRAIGHT TIME opened up in the spring of 1979 to mixed reviews and lukewarm box office returns. It would go missing in action for awhile afterwards but has recently reappeared on DVD with a commentary by Hoffman and Grosbard. It is a tough and emotionally wrecking film that is wrenching to watch but worth the work. I am grateful to Hoffman for his work in this film, outside of being a great work of art it helped me understand some damaging family issues that have arisen for me in the past decade. If you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it recently, give it a look. You're not likely to forget it anytime soon.

"They call it a depression...that's the word I got for this empty feeling inside."

" Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There's no escape."
-Taxi Driver-

There’s a fairly famous story about Martin Scorsese meeting John Cassavetes shortly after a screening of Boxcar Bertha in which Cassavetes congratulated Scorsese on his endeavor, and then told him he had spent a year of his life making a piece a shit and to not do it again. Scorsese took the words to heart and he quickly plunged into Mean Streets shortly after.

Overlooking Boxcar Bertha in the filmography of Martin Scorsese, as many people tend to do, is a bit like ignoring Elvis Presley’s original Sun recordings and just focusing on his later more polished and popular work for RCA. For while Boxcar Bertha might just appear to be a cheap Roger Corman produced exploitation film from the seventies, a closer look reveals a rich and vastly important film in Scorsese’s canon, one that would introduce a multiple number of themes and issues that still affect his films to this day.





When he began preparing Boxcar Bertha in January 1971 Scorsese only had two features under his belt, the ultra low budget but masterful Who’s That Knocking On My Door, and the acclaimed documentary Street Scenes. Boxcar Bertha would mark his first studio directed feature, as well as the first time he had worked with someone else’s material.




Roger Corman, of course, is one of the most important figures in film history and Scorsese belongs to a long list of important names who got their big break thanks to the great director turned producer. The rules were typically the same in this period, as Scorsese would remember, “Roger just told me, ‘Read the script, rewrite as much as you want, but remember, Marty, that you must have some nudity at least every fifteen pages. Not complete nudity, but maybe a little off the shoulder, or some leg just to keep the audience interest up.”




It was a system that worked over and over again for Corman and his young directors. Make it an exploitation movie filled with enough sex and violence to get the audience in the seats, but feel free to bring your own personal touches and obsessions to the table as well. Perhaps more than any other film and director in the AIP canon, Scorsese’s Boxcar Bertha did just that.





Boxcar Bertha is loosely based on a real life figure named Bertha Thompson, whose fictionalized book Sister of The Road (a work not even penned by her) detailed her struggles during the depression. The film itself belonged to a sub-genre that proliferated after the arrival of Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde in 1967 and continued up until the mid to late seventies. Boxcar Bertha is one of the finest Bonnie and Clyde inspired films of the period and has aged a lot better than almost any of them.

Filmed in a marathon 24-day shoot on a budget of 600,000 dollars in Reader, Arkansas and starring future Academy Award nominee Barbara Hershey, Boxcar Bertha might look at first like no other Martin Scorsese film but from the opening moments on it is clearly the work of no one else.

A discussion of the film can’t go on without paying tribute to Barbara Hershey, who appears in nearly every shot of the film and gives a remarkably complex and confident performance as the films title character. Hershey was nearing her mid twenties when she shot Boxcar Bertha and she already had a fairly exciting career behind her including a lot of television work and a mesmerizing turn in Frank Perry’s unforgettable Last Summer in 1969. For Boxcar Bertha, California native Hershey would master an Ozark accent and slip into the role of the depression era criminal like she was born to play it. The performance is of monumental importance in Scorsese’s canon as it would mark the first time he would focus on a woman. Scorsese is often thought of as almost strictly a male director but his work here foreshadows some of the most interesting of his career, from Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore to Age of Innocence, and it is doubtful that Scorsese could have worked so successfully with actresses like Ellen Burstyn and Michelle Pfeiffer in those films had it not been for his time with Hershey on the set of Boxcar Bertha. It would be a fruitful collaboration and one that would change Scorsese’s life as it was Hershey who presented him with his first copy of Last Temptation of Christ on the set of the film. More than a decade later she would be working with him again, this time as Mary Magdalene on what would turn out to be his most controversial feature.





Opening up with a scene that Scorsese would return to three decades later on The Aviator, Boxcar Bertha can be viewed as almost a preview catalogue of iconic images from Scorsese’s future career. Like some sort of mystical magic ball that he is looking into predicting his own cinematic future, such as a breathtaking early shot of Hershey walking towards the camera with her head down and hands in her jacket pocket. A small moment, but a haunting one when one compares it to one of Taxi Driver’s most famous shots just a few years down the road.




Bertha is a lost and lonely character and it is this isolation and distance that connects her so strongly with many of the more famous characters that have graced Scorsese’s films. She is also a guilty one and has any filmmaker ever been more focused on the idea of loneliness and guilt than Martin Scorsese?

I will use the IMDB plot synopsis to describe the story of Boxcar Bertha as I think it is a good and concise one: "Based on "Sister of the Road," the fictionalized autobiography of radical and transient Bertha Thompson as written by physician Dr. Ben L. Reitman, 'Boxcar' Bertha Thompson, a woman labor organizer in Arkansas during the violence-filled Depression of the early '30's meets up with rabble-rousing union man 'Big' Bill Shelly and they team up to fight the corrupt railroad establishment and she is eventually sucked into a life of crime with him." The plot here is less important than what Scorsese brings to it, as this is finally less a film about Bertha Thompson and more a work about a director and a pivotal period in American film history.




“I’m a Union Man.” It’s a line that will be repeated and echo throughout all of Boxcar Bertha and one can see its connection clearly to Scorsese's career, as he is someone who grew up loving the big budget studio films of his youth but finally realized his own place was as an independent within it and, at times, outside of it. David Carradine (seen here playing a gang leader named, of all things, Bill) says the line describing himself several times through the first half of the film. With several union related scenes foreshadowing Gangs of New York, like an expertly staged early riot sequence, the line becomes key to understanding not only Carradine's character but also the disappointed and traumatic destiny that awaits Bill, Bertha and the entire gang...and also Scorsese himself.




It isn't just Scorsese's film background that the movie brings up but also his religious training as the film is filled with many biblical based references, not the least being the audacious final scene involving a Crucifixion...so it is very much worth noting that it is indeed within a church where Bertha, Bill and the gang realize that the union and political ideas they had been holding onto were just as false and corrupt as the system they thought they were fighting. Like in any number of Scorsese’s later films, including Mean Streets, it is in a church where a decision is made that will alter the lives of the characters forever. In the case of Boxcar Bertha, it is a case of accepting their criminal lifestyle and relishing it.




Barbara Hershey isn’t the only one who gives a remarkable performance for Scorsese here. Carradine is very memorable, specifically in the final act of the film, and the talented Bernie Casey turns in one of his best performances as the harmonica playing Von Morton who is subjected to extremely ugly racism in nearly ever scene he is in. Also look for the great Victor Argo, seen here in one of his first films.





If Boxcar Bertha is just a typical exploitation film in its first hour with hints of Scorsese’s future greatness, then I would argue that the last 30 minutes of the film contains some of the best stuff Scorsese has ever shot. Beginning with a thrilling and poignant montage of sequences where we see Bertha given over to a life of prostitution (Scorsese himself appears here as one of her johns) to an ending that clearly foreshadows The Last Temptation Of Christ (that is as bleak as any that has ever appeared in a Scorsese or Corman production), the final couple of acts of Boxcar Bertha signal Scorsese for one of the first times as a major and innovative director with talent and style to burn. Add on the limitations he had shooting the film and the low budget, and these sequences prove all the more thrilling, heartbreaking and resonate.





If Who’s That Knocking On My Door and Mean Streets led to the classic Scorsese male driven films that he is most famous for, then Boxcar Bertha led to the more female driven films in his canon like Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, New York New York and The Age Of Innocence. Scorsese is a more complicated and diverse filmmaker than many people give him credit for and Boxcar Bertha is a clear signal that many more personal projects were on the horizon. The film is all the more audacious when one considers that along with being an incredibly personal work, it is also that 89 minute low budget exploitation film with some nudity and/or violence every few minutes that Roger Corman asked for.




Boxcar Bertha didn’t make much of a splash when it was released in the particularly hot summer of 1972. Like most of Corman’s productions in this period, it made its money back and played in various parts of the country on drive in bills. Critically is was ignored for the most part and it has since slipped into unfortunate obscurity, often just regarded by fans and critics as the cheap quickie Scorsese made between Who’s That Knocking At My Door and Mean Streets. It is a much deeper and winning film than that I assure you. It is currently available on DVD from MGM with a fairly sharp widescreen transfer (which highlights the great photography by underrated DP John M. Stephens), a trailer and nothing else. A special edition is in order and would go a long way to introducing the film to people who have never given it a shot.










John Cassavetes should be applauded for urging Scorsese to make a more personal project, as Mean Streets led to one of the most iconic and important directorial careers in film history. As much as I admire Cassavetes though, and he is one of my favorite filmmakers, I do take major exception to his quick and rather snobbish dismissal of Boxcar Bertha. Perhaps it has taken Scorsese’s work since to show just how powerful and important a film it is, I don’t know. I just know that it is one of my favorite Martin Scorsese pictures and I think a lot more ‘personal’ than most people have ever given it credit for.






***This is a slightly reedited piece of mine that originally appeared here nearly two years ago. The screenshots are new and I am reposting the text due to the recent Golden Globe tribute to Scorsese that seemed to go out of its way to ignore this important little film.****

"They can't evict you on Christmas. Then you'd be ho-ho-homeless."

1999 was one hell of a year for American cinema with works as varied as Eyes Wide Shut, Magnolia, The Insider and Being John Malkovich startling audiences all over the world. That sizzling twelve month period was filled with dozens of overlooked treasures as well ranging from Andrew Fleming’s delightfully smart and funny Dick to David Cronenberg’s sinister and prophetic eXistenz to Alexander Payne’s vicious black comedy Election. One of the key films of that year, and of the nineties in general, was the sadly overlooked third feature from Swingers director Doug Liman, the absolutely brilliant and audacious Go.







Shot on location in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and constructed in a bold non-linear style, Go features a cast made up of some of the best young actors of the late nineties, including Sarah Polley, Katie Holmes, Taye Diggs and Timothy Olyphant. One of the most ingenious and propulsive American films of the period, Go is a indie masterpiece that has still not quite gotten the recognition it deserved. Working from a wonderfully original script by future Tim Burton collaborator John August, Liman followed up the success of Swingers with a sharp, funny, sometimes shocking and unbelievably entertaining film that has still yet to be recognized as one of the great works in one of American cinema’s most pivotal periods.








John August hadn’t even reached his thirtieth birthday when he sold his rather audacious script for Go, a work originally planned as a short film, in the late nineties. The Colorado born former journalism major was one of the decades major, if unheralded, discoveries and while Go might still remain his most ingenious achievement his work since ranging from ultra-commercial pictures like Charlie’s Angels to particularly personal visions like Big Fish have all been marked by a keen intelligence and a invigorating originality. Go is an incredibly well written film, one that manages to be hip without condescending and funny without being juvenile.









The career of New York born Doug Liman has been one of the most unpredictable in recent memory. Wetting his feet in smart Indie comedies like Swingers , Liman has spent most of this decade making big budget action films like the tremendous Bourne Identity and the flawed but interesting Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Go is his greatest work though and his razor sharp direction of the film is a propulsive delight. Go breaks out of the gate at a gallop and it’s a breathtaking ride from its rave inspired opening credits to its sobering final moments on a chilly Los Angeles Christmas morning.






Attempting any sort of routine plot synopsis of Go would be a challenge at best. Like Pulp Fiction, a film it couldn’t escape lazy comparisons to back in 1999, it expertly follows several main characters throughout a handful of interconnecting storylines. Written and shot with an incredibly cool wit and managing a jaw-dropping unpredictability from the first sequence to the last, Go is one of the most brilliantly constructed films in recent memory. Multi-layered on every level, even the one-word title escapes no less than several definitions throughout the film’s running time.




While Liman's direction is extremely smart and solid, it is his cinematography that really separates Go from pretty much any American Indie film of the period. A joy to watch, Liman's terrific color-scheme manages a certain dingy euphoria throughout and he expertly balances the looks of the different locations into a cohesive whole. Liman really stretches the film's relatively small 6 million dollar budget, making Go look like a much more expensive film than it actually was.





For all of the greatness inherent in both Liman’s work and August’s screenplay, not to mention editor Stephen Mirrione’s skillful and inventive cutting, Go would have fallen flat on its clever face had it not been for its extraordinary ensemble cast. From the mysterious opening scene featuring a wonderfully sly and slightly mischievous Katie Holmes, who is really wonderful here, to the closing moments featuring a battered but victorious Sarah Polley, equally as good, Go is packed with unforgettable characters portrayed by a really gifted group of actors. The fact that anyone manages to outshine the tremendous Timothy Olyphant (why isn't this guy a huge star?), shows just how large the arsenal of young talent was in this period of American filmmaking.








Go’s position as a film very much of its period is an interesting one because despite all of its references, the hat tips to everything from The Breakfast Club to Alanis Morissette, Liman’s film still feels incredibly fresh and vital. If it is dated at all, it is more due to the fact that you would be hard pressed to find a film this original and brilliantly conceived in today’s theaters. In a decade marked by change and reinvention, Go was one of the ideal final films of the nineties and, for many of us who hold the promises of that decade close to heart, it remains an extremely noteworthy work and statement.




Doug Liman's follow-up to Swingers would not receive the same amount of attention that now iconic film had been given. Perhaps Go was a little too smart and layered for most movie-goers or perhaps they just mistook it for another teen comedy. Go did receive mostly enthusiastic reviews from American critics, with just a few holdouts, and its near 25 million take at the box-office was nothing for parent company Columbia to hang their corporate heads about. Still, Go didn't catch fire like it should have and it remains somewhat of a buried treasure begging for rediscovery. The DVD contains a terrific commentary track, a short featurette and a whopping 14 deleted scenes.







As we are nearing the end of this decade, I'm finding myself breathing a major sigh of relief. I'm also feeling more and more nostalgic for our pre-download, always plugged-in, existence. The one thing everyone in Go has in common is that they are very much alive. They are splintered, fractured and more than a little fucked up but they are ALIVE. Our zombiefied nation of people who now experience everything on a screen designed for their palm might experience a personal and spiritual revolution with an introduction to Doug Liman's invigorating film. I feel a real personal connection to Go and its (if you can't open the window then put a brick through it) characters. While the title of the film has a lot of different connotations, I will take it as a call to arms in this upcoming decade to shift from park to drive and fucking GO.





***For a more detailed look at the history of, and critical reaction to Go, I recommend Joe Valdez's great look at the film at This Distracted Globe.***