Holiday escapes: comparing Hindle Wakes with other films

Two interlinked topics explored by Hindle Wakes are sexual freedom and the seaside holiday. During the 20 th century ideas about the sexual freedoms of men and women changed, and holidays are often the times when young people experiment with breaking free of the social mores of their time. Hindle Wakes film is an early example in a long tradition of films that explore the holiday world where social conventions may be breached. The seaside resort offers a break from the routine of work, and from the social controls of family, community and workplace. This is signalled in the film by one of the opening intertitles:

"For one short week in each long year the mills of Lancashire are silent and the bond slaves of Cotton know the ecstasy of freedom."

The resort is a separate space, where a special licence exists to break down the usual conventions with boisterous behaviour, indulgence, late nights and sexual liaisons. You could explore this theme through comparison with other films.

Comparing a selection of the following films, students could explore the theme of holidays as spaces of freedom, where moral conventions can be broken or challenged, particularly by young women. All these films are available on VHS or DVD.

• Sing As We Go ( Basil Dean, 1934)
• Bank Holiday (Carol Reed, 1937)
• Genevieve (Henry Cornelius, 1953)
• Doctor in the House (Ralph Thomas, 1954)
• The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, 1962)
• A Kind of Loving (John Schlesinger, 1962)
• Bhaji on the Beach (Gurinder Chadha, 1993)
• Bend it Like Beckham (Gurinder Chadha, 2002)
• Ae Fond Kiss (Ken Loach, 2004)

Sing as We Go was a Gracie Fields vehicle, produced by Gaumont-British rivals, Associated Talking Pictures. In this musical comedy-drama, mill-girl Gracie loses her job because, due to the Depression, her factory closes down. Most of the film is set in Blackpool, the representation of which is similar to its representation in Hindle Wakes . There are several romantic strands, the main one being between a mill manager and a secretary.

Bank Holiday was produced by Gainsborough and is set in Brighton during the holiday weekend, providing an interesting comparison to Blackpool. The key protagonist is a nurse, played by Margaret Lockwood, having a short break from work. She is torn between a man she meets in Brighton and a bereaved, suicidal widower who is her patient. Unlike Fanny, she is saved from a 'fate worse than death' and returns from Brighton to London and the widower.

Genevieve and Doctor in the House are both romantic comedies from the 1950s, which involve plans for illicit weekends and holiday flirtations, However, the moral codes of the 1950s remain largely unchallenged. By the 1960s, moral conventions had begun to relax and several New Wave films revisited the traditional seaside settings. In The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , for example, Colin and his girlfriend, together with his accomplice, spend the loot from theft on a weekend in Skegness. In AKind of Loving, Vice (Alan Bates) and Ingrid (June Ritchie) have to get married because she is pregnant. However, they try to preserve a sense of romance during their seaside honeymoon.

In Bhaji on the Beach the Birmingham-based Saheli Women's Group has a day trip to Blackpool to see the sights and the illuminations. This drama incorporates not just the conflicts around pre-martial sex and gender, but those around contemporary youth culture and ethnic and class divides. Its representation of the seaside resort and of gender issues in the 1990s makes for a rich comparison to Hindle Wakes.

While Bend it Like Beckham is primarily about a girl's love of football, it is also about young romance and parental opposition. Jess Bhamra takes up women's football against the opposition of her family. She also, gradually, starts a romance with the team coach, Joe, while on a football trip to Germany. In this film, both the football ground and the German city are territories beyond parental control, as Blackpool is for Fanny. While a change of heart in her father, who represents the conservative family values that inhibit Jess, leads to a happy ending, Jess is not allowed to be as liberated as Fanny and the film ends with her departure on a football scholarship to the USA.

Ae Fond Kiss tells a story of forbidden love in Glasgow, where the conflicts are more to do with ethnicity than with class. Casim, from a Pakistani family, meets Roisin, from an Irish-Catholic family. Roisin, like Fanny, is independent-minded. She and Casim take a holiday together, at a Spanish seaside resort, rather than Blackpool. There are many contrasts and comparisons that can be made with Hindle Wakes:

• Rosin pays for the holiday;
• The romance leads to a long-term relationship.
• The affair leads to parental and social conflicts.
• While Fanny's illicit affair is off-screen, this one is clearly depicted on screen.
• We see little of the resort where the affair happens.

The following questions may help to make useful comparisons between Hindle Wakes and later films.

• How do the women protagonists compare in these different films? Identify the decisions they are able to make and the actions they are able to initiate. What role does the holiday play for each of them?
• Does there appear to be increasing freedom of action for women as the films near the present day?
• What is the moral line that each film proffers in relation to its characters' actions?
• In Hindle Wakes , when Fanny and Allan leave their usual environment for Blackpool's pleasures they feel able to break accepted social codes. To what degree do the other films have a special place where the social conventions can be broken? If it is not a resort, is it similar to Blackpool in other ways?
• Hindle Wakes clearly demarcates the worlds of the Hawthorns and the Jeffcotes, and the worlds of work and of leisure. How are visual symbols or aural and visual signifiers used to represent and reflect the oppositions between these worlds in Hindle Wakes and in the other films?