The bookie Sam Grundy’s car might seem a fairly unlikely focus for an article about Love on the Dole, but actually, though no one has noticed this before, it gives him a unique status as the only car-owner in Hanky Park. Being Sam Grundy, he takes all possible advantage of that status, using his car to advertise his business, his wealth and his power, and especially to exploit women. This article shows how in the novel and film (though not the play) Sam Grundy’s car is key to his plan to make Sally Hardcastle his mistress despite her complete unwillingness, and also how she resists him in encounters between her and Grundy focussed on the car in which he conducts his persistent predation. However, Sally never quite gives up resisting, as we can see in the forgotten sequel which Greenwood wrote in 1938.
See: Sam Grundy’s Car: Sally Hardcastle’s Resistance (1933; 1941)*
Best – Chris.
Walter Greenwood: Not Just Love on the Dole 