When the film premiered at the New York Film Festival, the New York Times gave a generally positive review but complained about the Sheffield dialect used in the film, saying "a great deal of the dialogue remains unintelligible to the American ear".
Jacob Leigh wrote that Ken Loach considered the film a failure (p.142 in "The Cinema of Ken Loach: art in the service of the people".
The title of the film remained mysterious for many years. In an interview for the book Loach on Loach, director Ken Loach said that it was taken from a line in a Chekhov play: "How did girls attract boys when they were young? In the usual way - with looks and smiles."