Poor Cow | |
---|---|
Directed by | Ken Loach |
Screenplay by | Nell Dunn Ken Loach |
Based on | Poor Cow (novel) by Nell Dunn |
Produced by | Joseph Janni Edward Joseph executive Nat Cohen |
Starring | Terence Stamp Carol White John Bindon Queenie Watts Kate Williams Billy Murray |
Cinematography | Brian Probyn |
Edited by | Roy Watts |
Music by | Donovan |
Production company | Vic Films Productions |
Distributed by | Anglo-Amalgamated |
Release date |
|
Running time | 101 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | £210,000 [1] or £228,206 [2] |
Box office | $1,400,000 (US/ Canada) [3] |
Poor Cow (also known as No Tears for Joy) is a 1967 British kitchen sink drama film directed by Ken Loach and starring Carol White and Terence Stamp. [4] It was written by Loach and Nell Dunn based on Dunn's 1967 novel of the same name. It was Loach's first feature film, after a series of TV productions. The film was re-released in the UK in 2016. [5]
18-year-old Joy, who comes from a big family with an alcoholic mother and womanising father, leaves home to marry Tom and they have a son, Johnny. Tom mentally and physically abuses Joy and shows little interest or affection. He has been in prison for four years and, when he is jailed again after being caught attempting a big robbery, Joy and her very young son are left on their own.
After briefly sharing a room with her Aunt Emm, an aging prostitute, Joy moves in with Dave, one of Tom's criminal associates. Dave is tender and understanding, but the idyll is shattered when he is sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment for leading a robbery which results in a woman being blinded, and given his long criminal record, early release seems unlikely. Intending to be faithful to Dave, Joy moves back with Aunt Emm, writes to Dave frequently, and initiates divorce proceedings against Tom.
After taking a job as a barmaid, Joy starts modelling for a seedy photographers' club and drifts into promiscuity. She likes men giving her presents but is too impulsive and easygoing to make a living as a prostitute. Bored with her humdrum surroundings, she dreams of bettering herself. When Tom is released, Joy goes back to him after he promises to move her from her small grotty flat to a modern well-furnished house. However, one evening, after Tom has slapped her several times, Joy goes out and upon returning, she finds Tom watching TV and Johnny missing. Joy frantically searches for Johnny and finally finds him alone on a demolition site where he has gone to play. Realising how much Johnny means to her, Joy decides to stay with Tom despite the abuse, but continues to dream of a future with Dave.
Credited despite scenes being cut
Terence Stamp says Ken Loach was inspired to write the film after meeting Carol White during Cathy Come Home (1966):
But he really didn’t write it; we didn’t really have a script. That was one of the things that was interesting about it. It was just wholly improvised. He had the idea, he had the overall trajectory in his mind, but we didn’t have a script. And, consequently, it had to be Take One because each of us had cameras on us. So before a take, he’d say something to Carol, and then he would say something to me, and we only discovered once the camera was rolling that he’d given us completely different directions. That’s why he needed two cameras, because he needed the confusion and the spontaneity. [6]
Set in London, the Winstanley and York Road Estates in Battersea were amongst the locations featured prominently in the background. [7] [8]
The opening credits attribute the film music to Donovan, although many pop songs like "Funny how love can be" by the Ivy League and "Not Fade Away" by the Rolling Stones from the era are heard in the film. Three Donovan songs are heard in the film, including the title song. The melody of the title song is repeated instrumentally in diverse arrangements in several parts of the film. It was released as single B-side to "Jennifer Juniper" in early 1968 in a different arrangement and with altered lyrics. For example, the standard release version opens with the line "I dwell in the north in the green country", while the version in the film opens with the line "I dwell in the town in the grey country".
Other songs by Donovan in the film are "Be Not Too Hard" and "Colours", the latter of which is sung by the character played by Terence Stamp.
The film was a surprise success at the box office. It sold to the US for more than its production cost and did extremely well in Italy and Britain. [1] According to Kinematograph Weekly , it was one of four British films in the top ten general releases of 1968. [9]
The Monthly Film Bulletin was critical of the film, summing it up as a "superficial, slightly patronising incursion into the nether realms of social realism". The review characterised Loach's direction as an "incongruous mixture of realism and romanticism" that, along with the cinematography, "suffuses the material in a cheery glow of lyricism that often verges on sentimentality." [10]
Writing in The Guardian , Richard Roud criticised the film as "downright awful" and particularly criticised "the tiresomely obvious documentary shots constantly thrown in to emphasise the ugliness of our couple’s surroundings", although he did praise Terence Stamp's performance as "superb". [11]
Film critic Renata Adler of The New York Times wrote in her review: "Poor Cow, which opened yesterday at the Murray Hill and other theaters, begins with some shots of the real birth of a baby, and goes on to become one of those ringingly false Technicolor British films about working-class life in London. It is not very good; but January has been, in general, a poor month for movies, and it might be a good idea to look at the bright side—which, since the quality of the color makes England look like April in Disneyland, is very bright indeed." [12]
In his 2½ star review, Roger Ebert stated that it "isn't a very good movie" but also labeled it as a potential sign for a new phase in recent British films of the time distinct from the social realism and satire films of the time as one made "in equal parts of squalor and techniques." [13]
On the film's re-release in 2016, Kate Muir in The Times gave the film four stars out of five and described the film as "incredibly moving". [14]
Clips of Stamp's performance in Poor Cow were used to show the early life of Wilson, the character he portrays in Steven Soderbergh's film The Limey (1999).
Terence Henry Stamp is an English actor. Known for his sophisticated villain roles, he was named by Empire as one of the 100 Sexiest Film Stars of All Time in 1995. He has received various accolades including a Golden Globe Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, and a Silver Bear as well as nominations for an Academy Award and two BAFTA Awards.
The Limey is a 1999 American crime film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Lem Dobbs. The film features Terence Stamp, Lesley Ann Warren, Luis Guzmán, Barry Newman, Nicky Katt, and Peter Fonda. The plot concerns an English career criminal (Stamp) who travels to the United States to investigate the recent suspicious death of his daughter. It was filmed on location in Los Angeles and Big Sur.
"Cathy Come Home" is a 1966 BBC television play about homelessness. It was written by Jeremy Sandford, produced by Tony Garnett and directed by Ken Loach. A 1998 Radio Times readers' poll voted it the "best single television drama" and a 2000 industry poll rated it as the second-best British television programme ever made. Filmed in a gritty, realistic drama documentary style, it was first broadcast on 16 November 1966 on BBC1. The play was shown in the BBC's The Wednesday Play anthology strand, which often tackled social issues.
Kitchen sink realism is a British cultural movement that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theatre, art, novels, film and television plays, whose protagonists usually could be described as "angry young men" who were disillusioned with modern society. It used a style of social realism which depicted the domestic situations of working-class Britons, living in cramped rented accommodation and spending their off-hours drinking in grimy pubs, to explore controversial social and political issues ranging from abortion to homelessness. The harsh, realistic style contrasted sharply with the escapism of the previous generation's so-called "well-made plays".
Nell Mary Dunn is an English playwright, screenwriter and author. She is known especially for a volume of short stories, Up the Junction, and a novel, Poor Cow.
James George Tomkins, known professionally as Big Jim Sullivan, was an English guitarist.
Carry On Doctor is a 1967 British comedy film, the 15th in the series of 31 Carry On films (1958–1992). It is the second in the series to have a medical theme. Frankie Howerd makes the first of his two appearances in the film series and stars alongside regulars Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Jim Dale, Charles Hawtrey, Joan Sims, Peter Butterworth, and Bernard Bresslaw. Hattie Jacques returns for the first time since Carry On Cabby four years earlier, while Barbara Windsor returns after her debut in Carry On Spying three years earlier. Carry On Doctor marks Anita Harris's second and final appearance in the series. The film was followed by Carry On Up the Khyber in 1968.
Carole Joan White was an English actress.
Anglo-Amalgamated Productions was a British film production company, run by Nat Cohen and Stuart Levy, which operated from 1945 until roughly 1971. Low-budget and second features, often produced at Merton Park Studios, formed much of its output. It was the UK distributor of many films produced by American International Pictures (AIP), who distributed AA's films in the United States.
Queenie Watts was an English actress of film and television, as well as an occasional singer. She was noted for her broad cockney accent.
Up the Junction is a 1968 British "kitchen sink" drama film, directed by Peter Collinson and starring Dennis Waterman, Suzy Kendall, Adrienne Posta, Maureen Lipman and Liz Fraser. It is based on the 1963 book of the same name by Nell Dunn and was adapted by Roger Smith. The soundtrack was by Manfred Mann. The film followed Ken Loach's BBC TV adaptation of 1965, but returned to the original book. It generated less controversy and impact than the Loach version.
"Jennifer Juniper" is a song and single by the Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan, released in 1968. It peaked at number 5 in the UK Singles Chart, and at number 26 in the Billboard Hot 100. AllMusic journalist Matthew Greenwald noted that "capturing all of the innocence of the era perfectly, it's one of his finest singles".
John Cameron is a British composer, arranger, conductor and musician. He is well known for his many film, TV and stage credits, and for his contributions to pop recordings, notably those by Donovan, Cilla Black and the group Hot Chocolate. Cameron's instrumental version of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love", became a hit for his group CCS and, for many years, a version of Cameron's arrangement was used as the theme music for the BBC TV show Top of the Pops.
Drum Beat is a 1954 American CinemaScope Western film in WarnerColor written and directed by Delmer Daves and co-produced by Daves and Alan Ladd in his first film for his Jaguar Productions company. Ladd stars along with Audrey Dalton, Charles Bronson as Captain Jack, and Hayden Rorke as President Ulysses S. Grant.
Tread Softly Stranger is a 1958 British crime drama film directed by Gordon Parry and starring Diana Dors, George Baker and Terence Morgan. The screenplay was written by George Minter adapted from the stage play Blind Alley (1953) by Jack Popplewell. The film was shot in black-and-white in film noir style, and its setting in an industrial town in northern England mirrors the kitchen sink realism movement coming into vogue in English drama and film at the time.
"Up the Junction" is an episode of the BBC anthology drama series The Wednesday Play directed by Ken Loach and produced by James MacTaggart. It was first broadcast on 3 November 1965 on BBC 1. The play was adapted by Nell Dunn and (uncredited) Ken Loach from Dunn's short story collection of the same name. It tells the stories of three young women living in North Battersea and Clapham and, to a lesser degree, their boyfriends.
Poor Cow is the first full-length novel by Nell Dunn, first published in 1967 by MacGibbon & Kee. The novel is a study of a working-class girl from the East End of London, struggling through the swinging sixties after making one bad decision too many. The novel was adapted for film in the same year of publication.
Kenneth Charles Loach is a British film director and screenwriter. His socially critical directing style and socialism are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty, homelessness, and labour rights.
I, Daniel Blake is a 2016 British drama film written by Paul Laverty and directed by Ken Loach. The film stars Dave Johns as Daniel Blake, a middle-aged man who is denied Employment and Support Allowance despite being declared unfit to work by his doctor. Hayley Squires co-stars as Katie, a struggling single mother whom Daniel befriends.
Gaolbreak is a 1962 British second feature crime film directed by Francis Searle and starring Peter Reynolds, Avice Landone and Carol White. The film was released as a supporting feature to Tiara Tahiti (1962).