Stars: Carol White, Terence Stamp, John Bindon, Queenie Watts, Kate Williams

Director: Ken Loach

Summary: A young London woman has to cope with poverty and squalor while her husband is in jail. Sadly clutching at any slight hope of happiness, she enters into a promiscuous relationship with his best friend, which ends in heartbreak. Based on the novel by Nell Dunn.

Terence Stamp stars in this early Ken Loach drama in which he has an affair with the wife of his best friend who is in jail with heartbreaking results. Shot in the 'kitchen sink' drama style, 'POOR COW' is grim slice of social realism.

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"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 Cowwith 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, Ladybirdor 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

Aspect Ratio:	1.66 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Subtitles:	None
Year:	1967
Release Date:	June 25, 2001
Runtime:	101 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	M P 053 D
Label:	Vintage Collection
Keywords:	General, Wide, Screen, Poor, Cow, Drama
Genre:	Drama