Catherine Cookson's The Cinder Path

This period drama was based on the best-selling novel by Catherine Cookson. Edward MacFell (Tom Bell) is a violent and tyrannical man who operates a large farm, but treats both his family and hired help with casual brutality. One day, Edward pushes someone too far and is killed. While his son ...more

This 1994 television production, like the Catherine Cookson novel from which it derives its story, is a soap opera on a grand scale. Set in the second decade of the 20th century in the northern England of blue collars and sandpaper hands, the film keeps viewers tethered to their TVs by subjecting its hero, farm boy Charlie MacFell, to endless trials. First, MacFell must endure abuse by his brutally sadistic father, then guard a terrible secret in the aftermath of his father's murder. Next, he ...more