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Poor Cow
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| Editorial Reviews: | | |  | | "I fell in the family way when I was 18 and I got married to a right bastard". Ken Loach's debut feature tells the story of Joy, a young mother (Carol White) whose chauvinistic thug of a husband is thrown into prison. She takes up with one of his friends, lovable, kind-hearted burglar Terence Stamp, but he too ends up in jail. It's intriguing to compare Poor Cow with Cathy Come Home, which Loach made for TV with the same actress at around the same time. Both are about mums trying to make a go of their lives in adverse circumstances. Cathy Come Home, shot in black and white, is an altogether tougher film. Poor Cow, with its Donovan music, gaudy colour photography, star names, and incongruously bawdy humour, seems lightweight by comparison. Certain sequences--Joy making love in the hay or posing half-naked for lecherous amateur photographers--must surely make Loach grimace now. There are some powerful moments--Joy desperately looking for her son who has wandered off, unattended, onto a building site, or trying to escape from her abusive husband--which anticipate such later Loach films as Ladybird, Ladybird or Raining Stones. The scenes between Joy and Stamp are played with real tenderness and humour. Don't be surprised if you think you've seen them before--some of the footage of Stamp was used in Steven Soderbergh's recent thriller, The Limey. --Geoffrey Macnab | |
| Custom Reviews: | |
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| A rough diamond of a film! | |
| | "Poor Cow" is my favourite Ken Loach film. In fact, it is my favourite film of all time. I only discovered it 2 years ago and it has a very personal connection for me. I have since read the novel that inspired it and can state that it is a very honest and faithful dramatisation of Nell Dunn's text. It is a film about a side of London life to which many will be oblivious, and, of course, many will not.
Carol White is superb as Joy, whose first name is not as ironic as it may seem. Her life may well be a vortex of poverty, squalor and unhappiness, but White (through her acting) and Loach (through his direction) portray the character with compassion and strength as someone who is sassy and fun. This same compassion shows through in all the other characters too. There are quite a few bright moments that shine through. The scenes of Joy with her little son, Johnny, are particularly touching and very, very well-done. The location filming around Wales is visually stunning, as indeed is the opening sequence! (I will say no more about this!)
Terence Stamp is also amazing in this film, as are all of the supporting cast. Watch out for John Bindon who somehow steals the show with his brilliant-but-awful acting in his début performance as Tom Steadman!
The theme song, specially adapted and performed by Donovan, is haunting and in a way, ironic, for John Bindon's life ended early at the age of 50, as, for that matter, did Carol White's.
This film is a real rough diamond and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
I am grateful to Ken Loach for having the guts and tenacity to bring to this film to life. Poor Cow documents the lives of the underdogs and is an important and interesting piece of cinema that will always have a special place in my heart.
| | A wonderful gem of a film! | |
| | As a Ken Loach fan I've seen quite a few films that he's made. However,I overlooked this film for years. I simply adored this film. My heart was moved by the central character played by Carol White and her journey through life with disappointing relationships with men, her struggles to bring up her child on her own and with money. It was interesting to see so many actors in their younger days appearing in this film such as Billy Murray(East Enders -Johnny Allen), Terence Stamp, Kate Williams as well as legends such as Queenie Watts. This is a superb film and a great social commentary on a very different England to the one that we all live in today.
| | | I love movies like this. Despite a never ending trend of bogus remakes you cant remake history. Watch it over and over and gasp at the enormous beauty of Terrance Stamp who looks like a young George Best.
60's classic.
| | Make sure you know what your getting | |
| | This is a documnetary Drama - this what Loach is famed for and very good at. This one of his earler works so may be a little rough round the edges, but has a strong heart and soul.
| | | Filmed in a somewhat documentary style, it is interesting to see how shabby, in fact scummy, London life could be in the sixties, amid slum clearances. A basic kitchen sink drama, which was quite the vogue at the time and filmed in a style that was quite the vogue also, but you need something more than that, and this film fails to offer it. The film is interesting while Terry Stamp is on the set, but that's all too brief, it just basically meanders through the 'Poor Cow's' life after that, she is litterally left with nothing but hope, oh and a baby and a violent husband. But by the end of the film I was just looking at it as sort of a period piece and picking out various sixties styles and such.
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