The team of director Ken Loach and producer Tony Garnett, whose highly-regarded television collaborations included such seminal plays as Up the Junction, Cathy Come Home and The Big Flame, made vivid blend of drama and documentary Kes. It is ‘funny, moving, at moments quite beautiful,’ said Barry Norman in the Daily Mail: and he concluded that ‘being starless, sexless and unviolent all it has in its favour is that it’s very, very good indeed.’
Loach and Garnett collaborated with Barry Hines to adapt his novel for the screen and cast non-professional David Bradley as Billy Casper, a youngster who lives with his flighty mother (Lynne Perrie) and loutish stepbrother Jud (Freddie Fletcher) on a Yorkshire council estate. He has an early morning paper round, attempts to stay clear of a gang with whom he has been in trouble, and is unresponsive at school.
When he goes bird-nesting he discovers a kestrel’s nest, takes one of the fledglings and, calling it ‘Kes’, keeps it in the garden shed, using a stolen book on falconry to start to work with the bird. Eventually his patience and perseverance pay off and he manages to train the bird to fly free, return to his hand for food, and to take meat in flight from a lure. His schoolwork suffers even further but English teacher Mr Farthing (Colin Welland) takes interest in him and the kestrel. But when Jud gives him money to put on a horse, Billy spends it on food for the bird. Jud is enraged because the horse won and takes his revenge on the only thing his brother really cares for.
Kes was filmed for eight weeks on location in and around Barnsley during the summer of 1968. In spite of glowing press write-ups and two successful screenings at the London Film Festival in 1969, it was shelved until 1970 when, after opening in Doncaster, it was finally released in London. Loach’s left-wing ideology was relegated to second place in favour of keen, documentary-style observation, humour and unforced acting, notably from 14-year-old Bradley.
production details
UK / 110 minutes / 1969
Director: Ken Loach
Writers: Barry Hines, Ken Loach, Tony Garnett, from the novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines,
cast
David Bradley as Billy
Freddie Fletcher as Jud
Lynne Perrie as Mrs. Casper
Colin Welland as Mr. Farthing
Brian Glover as Mr. Sugden
Bob Bowes as Mr. Gryce
Bernard Atha as Youth Employment Officer
Joey Kaye as Pub Comic
Bill Dean as Fish and Chip Shop Man
Duggie Brown as Milkman
Harry Markham as Newsagent
Zoe Sutherland as Librarian
Robert Naylor as MacDowell
Joe Miller as Reg
Eric Bolderson as Farmer
George Speed as Billy’s friend
Trevor Hesketh as Mr Crossley
Geoffrey Banks as Maths Teacher
David Glover as Tibbutt
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