Cinema
Caddie
Donald Crombie · 1976
Synopsis
In Sydney in 1925, Caddie leaves her husband, brutal and unfaithful, and takes her two children with her. To make a living, she becomes a barmaid. A brief affair with Ted ends badly; she then falls for Peter, a Greek immigrant, but he is already married and has to return to Greece. Left without work or money for her children, she takes a place behind a counter again and, during the Depression, works for an illegal bookmaker while evading the police.
Context
The film adapts Caddie, the Story of a Barmaid, a partly fictionalised autobiography published in 1953; its author is named as Catherine Edmonds (Australian Screen says she remained anonymous), and the novelist Dymphna Cusack reworked the text. The producer Anthony Buckley found the book in a newsagent's in Sydney in the early seventies and entrusted the adaptation to Joan Long. Partly financed by the Australian committee for International Women's Year, the film cost 400,000 dollars, was released on 1 April 1976 and earned 2,847,000 in Australia. Helen Morse, chosen for her elegance, plays Caddie as a well-born woman fallen into hardship.
Who it is for
An Australian film in English, a feminist statement according to Australian Screen, which follows the work of a barmaid.
Prizes and reception
AFI award for best actress for Helen Morse in 1976; one of the high points of the Australian revival according to Australian Screen.
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