Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Early sixties Britain is still a fairly innocent place and Mary Whitehouse (Julie Walters), a suburban local art teacher and church-goer, lives a dainty little English existence in her quiet, dainty little Midlands village. But she becomes outraged by what she sees as declining standards on British TV, with more regular, casual bad language, sex talk and violence. The film portrays her real life crusade to 'clean up TV', bringing her into conflict with Hugh Greene (Hugh Bonneville) the new Programmes Commissioner at the BBC, who's moving with the times more and showing programmes more suited to the changing social attitudes.

It's interesting to note what a puritanical society we used to be not really so long ago, especially when we comment on the Americans and their prudish standards they still have on mainstream TV. Maybe it's the age I've been raised in but I've always been one for freedom of expression and mature adults being allowed to see what they want, so Mary Whitehouse was never a character that was going to agree with me. But even if you think her campaigns were misguided, you have to admire her determination and conviction of her will, which this very well made TV drama has portrayed.

The main thing that drives it is two superb lead performances. In the title role, Walters gives it her all as the quaint English lady with an unwavering moral compass who is forced to come to terms with society's changing ideals, attitudes, morals and beliefs while leading her campaign and similarly Bonneville is also great as the arrogant TV chief who bites off more than he can chew with the little guy.

Both the characters are very well written too, along with the script, which really gets you involved with the story, which is engaging and enthralling but refreshingly humorous, too, although in a manner risqué enough, ironically, to get Mrs Whitehouse up in arms about. ****

Now a beneficiary like The Krays of sixties nostalgia, Mary Whitehouse has here become an amusing English eccentric out of an Ealing comedy to an aggressively whimsical musical accompaniment.

Julie Walters moves on from poacher Madame Cyn to gamekeeper Mrs Whitehouse, who'd now be spinning in her grave if she saw how her espousal of direct action against smut spawned today's new puritanism of Woke.

This is based on Mary Whitehouse's early efforts into TV censorship specifically with the BBC. It barely gets into her personal life except when related to the censorship work.

Mary Whitehouse went after more than the BBC, in fact more than TV she went after movies and print media. This movie never goes there. It does try to inject some humor but rarely with any success although it is possible it was successful with a British audience.

I am fairly familiar with Mary Whitehouse and some of her appearances on TV are available on YouTube. This didn't provide any new information unless you are completely unfamiliar with her you might learn the basics.

This was just a lighthearted look at the period and doesn't make any real judgement calls. Worth a watch.

Although Julie Walters looks a bit like Caroline Aherne as her Mrs Merton character in quite a few scenes this is quite a true and very fair portrayal of Mrs Whitehouse. Whatever you think of her prudery and her lack of humour you actually feel sympathetic to her when she gets heckled at meetings and gets abusive letters and phonecalls. It's fair to say that the permissive society had an inpermissive nature, if you get my meaning. She was also not a lady to mess with and you said unfavourable things about her at your peril. The film mentions her successful defamation actions. It's fair to say that if you were up against Mrs Whitehouse in court your chances of success were slim. The end credits mention Whitehouse v Lemon (aka The Gay News Case) which was very much on the Pythons' minds when they made The Life of Brian. To her credit she was one of the first people to campaign against child pornography but she turned herself into a figure of fun by finding fault with Dr Who and Pinky & Perky. I wondered how on earth was Pinky & Perky corruptive? Well, I suppose it was. It inspired many 60s and 70s kids to play LPs at 78rpm and I think that might have been bad for the records. Sir Hugh Carleton-Greene is not portrayed favourably. He is shown to be arrogant, smug, coarse, foul-mouthed and lecherous. I have no idea what he was like as a person so I can't judge how fair a portrayal this was. Julie Walters these days is of course best known as Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter films and I imagined a scene where Sir Hugh gets a howler from Mary Whitehouse. The letter gets delivered by owl on his desk and then shouts, in Julie Walters' voice, "Hugh Carleton-Greene, I am absolutely disgusted" and then goes on to complain about the number of bloodys in Till Death Us Do Part, Dr Who having nightmare qualities etc and what kind of example certain programmes are to the young people of the country and then goes on in the gentler "Oh and Ginny dear" voice to say "Oh and last Sunday's Songs of Praise was lovely", then blowing a raspberry and self-shredding. Mrs Whitehouse died the year the first Harry Potter film came out. It's fair to say she'd have some criticisms to make of Harry Potter.

Mary Whitehouse is a Midlands housewife with a perfectly respectable family and village life. Whenever she hears the girls at school talking about premarital sex following a discussion programme on the subject on the BBC it turns out to be only one of many impacts that she perceives the BBC's output to be having on the morality and good fibre of British society. As a result of several letters, Whitehouse forms a small group to challenge the filth flooding into the homes of millions of families on a nightly basis and quickly finds her campaign getting national attention and becoming a thorn in the side of the more progressive Sir Hugh Greene, Director General of the BBC.

I'm no fan of Mary Whitehouse nor of censorship. Neither do I believe that the decline of standards in society are entirely down to the depiction thereof in the media. However this is not the same as just saying that anyone can broadcast whatever they want without any sort of checks, balances or controls in place. Many people will share these views and agree that, while adults should be treated as adults, children should be protected and unsecured flows of media cannot contain the same content as media streams that are filtered as to audience (ie ratings, timings etc). Filth also thinks this I believe and it structures its telling very well. Whitehouse is not painted as a crazy old woman at first but rather a perfectly reasonable person concerned by what she sees on television and the effect it appears to be having directly on teenagers but gradually she is revealed to be just as frustrated with changes in society and that perhaps the BBC is just a focal point for her frustrations.

The script does this really well and the delivery is gradual so that it is clear without being obvious. I did worry that this would just be a 90 minute kicking of Whitehouse but it did do her justice because it showed the good elements of her as well as the bad (of which it must be said there are more). Julie Walters didn't totally convince me in the title role but this was because she was just a little too much like Mrs Merton for me. However her performance does back up the gradual nature of the script again where it could have been easy to play her as simply a batty old lady stuck in the past and nothing more. I thought Armstrong did well alongside her while Bonneville is light and fun in his BBC role.

Filth may have a terrible title card (a bike going over a dog turd) but as a film it is actually very good. The tone is light but not to the point of easy mockery; the script allows for Whitehouse to be shown in a fair light – thus good and bad are on display – while the performances are mostly good and fitting the film. You my not have agreed with her or you may lament her loss, but either way Filth is a fair and entertaining film that is a job well done.