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Poor Cow was Ken Loach‘s first feature-length movie and this is the first time I’ve seen it – another in a long line of films I’ve never got round to seeing until their Blu-ray debut.
With I, Daniel Blake releasing in cinemas on October 21st, I hope we get more of these in the run-up to that, not least because I’d like to see them as I have a lot of catching up to do, and even those that I have seen I probably didn’t appreciate at the time as I was too young, so it would be good to revisit them. However, there’s always the question of whether the latest one will be Loach’s last. He told Mark Kermode last time they met, that he wouldn’t make any more, but then in a recent Kermode Uncut vlog (see towards the end of this review), he confirmed he might’ve just been tired after working long days etc, and had since had a chance to rethink.
Another interview is taking place in this film, as Joy (Carol White) is talking about her life, with the segments of her life effectively being shown in flashback, showing captions to denote each ‘chapter’, beginning with her marriage to the nefarious Tom (John Bindon), “When Tom was in the money, the world was our oyster… and we chose Ruislip.”
Tom doesn’t treat her with an ounce of respect and uses her as a punch bag. In fact, we first see her as she’s giving birth – a scene that was considered shocking at the time, and is one of the reasons the film received an ‘X’ certificate, but more shocking to me was the fact that straight after, she was out of the hospital bed and carries the baby home on her own. Before long, the only thing Tom and her have in common is their young son, Jonny. So, once hubby’s in the nick, she’s soon playing ‘how’s your father’ with Dave (Terence Stamp) who’s very blase about being a professional thief, so it’s clear that Joy doesn’t help herself with poor life choices, but then a lot of us can relate to that.
Poor Cow is a fascinating study of, then, modern life. With a lot of improvised dialogue, there are scenes of people just chatting away, for example seeing two gossiping old women in the park, as Loach just points the camera and lets it run. As he also describes in his extras interview, people weren’t so aware of the cameras back then as it was quite a new thing, so they were more relaxed with it. This all helps in the film’s favour.
In Joy’s life, men have treated her like crap, and she responds to others by treating them like crap, and sleeping around with as many men as she likes, such is the ‘swinging Sixties’. In addition, she thinks she’s going to get a modelling career by posing in skimpy outfits for a bunch of old perverts, but we all do what we can in life if we think we’re going to better ourselves, especially if, in her case, all she has to live for is clinging on to lost hope for things she cannot have.
John Bindon was reportedly rather a bastard on movie sets – purposely fluffed scenes so they could get paid overtime, although in the extras on this disc, Ken Loach confirms that he was good to work with on this film. However, there’s also reports that Bindon took to becoming a gangster in later life, and was also rather friendly with The Krays.
I’ll also add that at one point, little Jonny’s told to be Yogi Bear, and given a mask, but the mask is of Huckleberry Hound. But like I said, it’s improvised dialogue, so life can happen that way.
It’s sad to note the passing of both Carol White and John Bindon, although less so for him given his behaviour and gangster lifestyle, and also because he continued to be the ‘lad around today’ and slept around so much that he developed AIDS. I bet he was hardly John Holmes. Ms White, meanwhile, succumbed to liver disease.
There’s also a deliciously sleazy brief performance from the late Ken Campbell as a council worker. I’m trying to currently sort out a while line to go across my driveway to stop idiots parking in front of it. It seems that, had I required this 50 years ago, I’d have had to sleep with him to get it sorted. These days, they just want a ridiculous £135. I think I’d rather provide the sexual favours.
The film is presented in the original 1.66:1 widescreen theatrical ratio with slight black bars down the side, and is in 1080p high definition. For a 50-year-old film, it looks superb, albeit very soft on occasion. Then again, that’ll be down to the filming technique and not of any issues with the print. It’s difficult to rate it 10, though, given that it’s not pin-sharp throughout, but rest assured, fans of the film will be very pleased with what’s on show. I’m watching the film on a 50″ plasma screen, played on a PS4.
The sound is in 1.0 DTS Mono, as films. It’s exactly what you’d expect as it’s a dialogue-driven piece, and with no issues. There’s also a wealth of great songs from Donovan.
The extras are as follows:
- Poor Cow and The British New Wave (10:42): Rather a lot of overanalysis by John Hill – Professor of Media, Royal Holloway, University of London and Melanie Wiliams – Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at East Anglia University. Instead of listening to this pontificating, it’s best to get stuck into the interviews that follow.
- Interviews: Three in total – Ken Loach (16:00), Terence Stamp (7:44) and Nell Dunn (9:35), who wrote the original novel, and co-wrote the screenplay with Mr Loach.
Loach plays tribute to Carol White, given how much he enjoyed working with her. He also states how he’d love to edit the film to tighten things up a bit and take about ten minutes out (which I agree with), but as he conceeds, it’s “very much a first film”, since it was his debut feature-length movie, so it’s understandable that while very good, it’s not perfect.
Stamp learned how to be spontanteous in his acting while working on this film, and he says how he later used that in subsequent work – starting a take with his mind completely blank, so he could free-form much more easily. Meanwhile, Nell Dunn talks about how it took her seven years to become an overnight success, so it was a hard slog and not a quick thing as some people assumed.
- 1966 archive interview with Carol White (3:27): This is a brief piece but quite a find to have this black-and-white footage looking so good after 50 years.
Over the 101-minute film, there are just EIGHT chapters. Jeez, Studiocanal, don’t push the boat out, will you! Based on my rule of thumb of one every five minutes, there should be TWENTY. I know they denote the ‘chapters’ of Joy’s life, but some go on for longer than fifteen minutes.
Subtitles are in English and the menu is static and silent.
Poor Cow is out now on Blu-ray and DVD, and click on the packshot for the full-size image.
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
7.5 8 7 4 |
| OVERALL | 6.5 |
Cert: 
Running time: 101 minutes
Year: 1967
Distributor: Studiocanal
Cat.no: OPTBD3034RO
Released: July 25th 2016
Chapters: 8
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound:1.0 DTS-HD Mono, DTS 1.0, Dolby Digital 1.0
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 1.66:1 (35 mm)
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Ken Loach
Producer: Joseph Janni
Screenplay: Nell Dunn and Ken Loach (based on the novel by Nell Dunn)
Music: Donovan
Cast:
Joy: Carol White
Tom: John Bindon
Dave: Terence Stamp
Aunt Emm: Queenie Watts
Beryl: Kate Williams
Mr. Jacks: Ken Campbell
Solicitor: Ellis Dale
Bet: Gladys Dawson
Neighbour: Anna Karen
Tom’s mate: Billy Murray
Johnny, Age 3: Stephen King
Jonny, Age 1½: Simon King
Photographers: John Halstead, Will Stampe, Bernard Stone, George Tovey
Petal: Ron Pember
Shelley: Phillip Ross
Trixie: Geraldine Sherman
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.