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Kes
Film poster
Directed by	Ken Loach
Produced by	Tony Garnett
Written by	Barry Hines (novel) Tony Garnett
Starring	David Bradley Freddie Fletcher Lynne Perrie Colin Welland Brian Glover George Speed
Music by	John Cameron
Cinematography	Chris Menges
Editing by	Roy Watts
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date(s)	1969
Running time	110 min
Language	English
IMDb profile

Kes is a British film from 1969 by director Ken Loach and producer Tony Garnett. The film is based on the novel, A Kestrel for a Knave written by Barry Hines in 1968.

The film focuses on Billy Casper, who has little hope in life beyond becoming a coal miner and is bullied both at home, by his physically and verbally abusive brother, Jud, as well as at school. He is mischievous himself; he steals milk from milk floats, gets other students into trouble and generally fights and misbehaves. Billy comes over as an emotionally neglected boy with little self-respect. His mother refers to him in the film as a "hopeless case".

Outside cadging money, smoking cigarettes and day-dreaming at school Billy has no positive interests. His greatest fear is ending up working down the pit as a coal miner but he has no apparent escape route from what would ultimately be his fate. That is until he finds an outlet from his pitiful existence through training a kestrel that he takes from a nest on a farm. His interest in learning falconry prompts Billy to "borrow" a book on the subject from a secondhand book shop as he cannot get a borrower's card for the Public Library.

As the relationship between Billy and "Kes", the kestrel, during the training improves so does Billy's outlook and horizons. For the first time in the film Billy receives praise, from his English teacher after delivering an impromptu talk on his relationship with the bird.

However, Billy intentionally fails to place a bet on a horse for his brother, instead keeping the money for himself as Billy assumes it is unlikely to win. When the horse does win and Jud receives no winnings he "pays" Billy back by killing his kestrel. This point, near the end of the film, is the bleakest moment for Billy, as it represents his would to be failure to escape his fate as a miner.

DVD Cover for Kes

Both the film and the book provide an authentic portrait of life in the mining areas of Yorkshire of the time. The school used as the main set was St. Helens School, Carlton Road, Athersley South, Barnsley, but has since been renamed as the Edward Sheerien School. Set in Barnsley, the film contains broad local dialects. The cast have authentic Yorkshire accents and used or knew the dialects. Extras were all hired from in and around Barnsley. David Bradley, who played Billy Casper, and Freddie Fletcher, who played Jud, were both born in Barnsley. Lynne Perrie was from Rotherham, and Brian Glover was from Sheffield - both of which have slightly different accents to Barnsley. Many of the teachers speak in Received Pronunciation. The film is often used in schools for classes on English language: it is less common nowadays to hear even the old Yorkshire dialect or the old Received Pronunciation that is heard in the film.

Golding, Simon W. (2006). Life After Kes: The Making of the British Film Classic, the People, the Story and Its Legacy. Shropshire, UK: GET Publishing. ISBN 0-9548793-3-3. 

• Kes at the Internet Movie Database
• BFI's Top Ten (British) Films
• A plethora of Kes links
• Short synopsis and review of Kes
• Senses of Cinema - a detailed synopsis, referenced background and review of Kes by Mike Robins