Poor Cow

Poor Cow is a 1967 British drama film, directed by Ken Loach and based on Nell Dunn's novel of the same name. It was Ken Loach's first feature film, after a series of successful TV productions.

Plot

18-year-old Joy starts her catalogue of bad choices by running away from home with Tom. They marry and have a son, Johnny. When Tom, a thief who mentally and physically abuses Joy, is jailed for four years after attempting a big robbery, she is left on her own with their son.

After briefly sharing a room with her Aunt Emm, an ageing prostitute, she moves in with Dave, one of Tom’s former associates. Dave is tender and understanding in his treatment of Johnny and Joy, but the idyll is punctured when Dave gets 12 years for robbery. Intending to be faithful, Joy writes to him constantly, moves back with Aunt Emm, and initiates divorce proceedings against Tom. She takes a job as a barmaid, starts modelling for a seedy photographers’ club and drifts into promiscuity.

But when Tom is released, Joy agrees to go back to him for Jonny’s sake. One evening, after Tom has beaten her up, she runs out of their flat and returns to discover that Jonny is missing. After a frantic search, she finds him on a demolition site. Realising how much Johnny means to her, she accepts the need of compromise and stays with Tom, but she continues to dream of a distant future with Dave.

Poor Cow (novel)

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.

Plot

Working class Joy, 22 and dreaming of the good life the swinging sixties has promised discovers the pitfalls of the new promiscuity when her husband Tom is sent to prison for theft, leaving her to look after baby Jonny. She moves in with her Auntie Emm and manages to keep her head above water by working as a barmaid and occasional tart. When Joy begins an affair with a friend of her husband, another petty thief, she can’t help but start to dream all over again. It is only when her child goes missing that she finally realizes the emptiness of her daydreams.

Adaptations

Nell Dunn wrote the screenplay for a film version in 1967, directed by Ken Loach and starring Carol White and Terence Stamp.