Love on the Dole

Love on the Dole (1941)

Depressing and realistic family drama about the struggles of unemployment and poverty in 1930s Lancashire. The 20-year-old Kerr gives an emotionally charged performance as Hardcastle, one of the cotton workers trying to make life better. Interlaced with humour that brings a ray of sunshine to the pervasive bleakness, this remains a powerful social study of life between the wars, and was a rare problem picture to come out of Britain at the time.

Date of release
1941-06-28
TMDB
5.9 / 10 (16)
Runtime
1h 34m
Genres
Drama
Director
John Baxter

Casting

Interesting facts

Love on the Dole is a 1941 British drama film directed by John Baxter and starring Deborah Kerr and Clifford Evans. It was adapted by Walter Greenwood, Barbara K. Emary and Rollo Gamble from the 1934 play by Ronald Gow based on Greenwood's 1933 novel of the same name. It was the first English-made feature film to show English police wielding batons against a crowd. It is the best known film by Baxter and one of the best known from British National Pictures.

Production

The film was based on a book that was turned into a popular play. Although the book was successful, a proposed film version was rejected by the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) in 1936 as it was a "very sordid story in very sordid surroundings". However, in 1940 the BBFC approved a similar proposal, with the film finally released in June 1941.

Jessie Matthews auditioned to play the role of Sally. John Baxter said she was good but he wanted an unknown to play the role out of fear a star would unbalance the movie.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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