The Long Good Friday (18.)
1980. Directed by John Mackenzie.
Starring Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Derek Thompson, Dave King, Eddie Constantine, Bryan Hamilton, Paul Freeman and P.H. Moriarty. 116 mins. Available on Blu-ray in a four disc edition, or six disc edition with Mona Lisa, from Arrow Films.
I don't really have a lot of time for the current debate about the preponderance of posh British actors in top roles. What else would you have Old Etonians do, if not dress up and prance the boards pretending to be Kings? It keeps them busy and stops them messing up anything important. So, I commend Eddie Redmayne for his Oscar winning interpretation of Stephen Hawking, (Austin Powers in a wheelchair, yeah groovy baby) but let's make one thing clear – he ain't no Bob Hoskins and you never will be. I wouldn't swap Redmayne's finest hour for a minute of Hoskins doing one of his “It's good to talk,” BT ads. Because centuries of breeding and privilege can't beat a prole with raw talent.
Stardom and celebrity is normally enough to ensure the most unsound of constitutions make it into their 80s, so Hoskins' death last year at the age of 71 seems particularly unjust. The Bafta's didn't even include him in their in memorium montage but at least Arrow films are doing right by him, releasing a four disc set of his breakout big screen role as East End gangster Harold Shand who, having worked his way up from the streets, is on the verge of becoming legit and signing a massive property deal with the Americans..
(There is also a six disc box set available which adds Mona Lisa.)
Does the Long Good Friday really warrant a four disc package? It's a tricky question because in some respects it's not that good a film. Shand is a working class boy made good. He's smart and forceful but a little rough around the edges, and the film is much the same. Both Hoskins and director Mackenzie were moving up from a career in telly. Mackenzie was a Play For Today veteran, and the film has a very telly sensibility. It all looks like it was done in one or two shots, with little gaffs left in. Occasionally the staging is slightly stiff, a bit formal, the kind of thing that could've been worked through with a couple more takes. Then there is the score by Francis Monkham, that mixes fledgling synthesizer noodling with muzak saxophones. It's incredibly naff and you'd curse any lift journey it was pumped into, but at the key moments it really works.
It's horribly dated, but that probably works for it. It's the kind of film that today would feature helicopter shots of the Gherkin and the Shard – back in the 70s the lap of luxury was Concorde and The Savoy. Of course, The Long Good Friday is why so many British films are about East End gangster and set against the backdrop of the naughty corner of misshappen skyscrapers.
Barrie Keefe's script is unerringly prescient about how London would burst out of the doldrums in the eighties. Shand makes his big “hands across the water” speech on the deck of his luxury yacht against the backdrop of Tower Bridge as they head east along the Thames and the big property deal is all about redeveloping docklands and at one point, while walking through the deserted wharfs he jokes about it being the site of “the 1988 Olympic stadium.”
Long Good Friday didn't invent the British gangster movie but it did reposition it. The germ of the film came from producer Barry Hanson's suggestion that he'd like to see a Humphrey Bogart film where Bogart was an East End gangster, and in doing this it put the British gangster film into the mainstream: none of that Performance style poncing around. As British gangster movies go, it's a hell of gathering of the faces. Just about everybody goes on to be someone whether it's a life on Casualty for Thompson, a career in East End gangster films as was path ahead for Moriarty and Alan Ford, or for Pierce Brosnan, who appears memorably but dialogue less on screen for the first time here, James Bond. Even Dexter Fletcher turns up as a youngster demanding money for minding Shand's car when he parks in a rough area.
But despite the impressive cast the film is Hoskins, who projects a phenomenal short arsed energy that he doesn't quite know how to control. At times you may think the film should leave it out with the leaveidoutz, that it's having a laugh with the havinalarfz, that it is is over stating its prole credentials but the seamless flow of emotions coming out of Shand makes you go with the flow. He was an infectious performer and you follow where he leads even if a voice is saying that maybe he's a bit too short, and a bit too emotional to really be the boss: surely wielding power as he has for ten years or so would have taught him some measure of restraint and reserve.
He was a strange dichotomy. A man who looked like the negative of an Idi Amin Polaroid but was so overflowing with goodness that he could retain audience sympathy, even love, when he thrusting a broken bottle into someone's face.
Harold Shand is a great performance all the way through but it was his playing of the last two scenes, that makes it iconic, and him a star. In one he has to say a lot, in the other nothing at all. He was equally eloquent with or without dialogue.
Extras.
A director's commentary by Mackenzie.
An hour long making of.
Interviews with the writer, cinematographer and producer
A Q&A at the National Film Theatre with Hoskin and Mackenzie moderated by Richard Jobson.
The original trailer
A short feature showing how some (but surprisingly little) of the dialogue was altered for the American release.
Apaches, a half hour public information film directed by MacKenzie in the 70s. It is supposed to illustrate to children the dangers of playing around on farm land and was notorious for its grisliness.
1980. Directed by John Mackenzie.
Starring Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Derek Thompson, Dave King, Eddie Constantine, Bryan Hamilton, Paul Freeman and P.H. Moriarty. 116 mins. Available on Blu-ray in a four disc edition, or six disc edition with Mona Lisa, from Arrow Films.
I don't really have a lot of time for the current debate about the preponderance of posh British actors in top roles. What else would you have Old Etonians do, if not dress up and prance the boards pretending to be Kings? It keeps them busy and stops them messing up anything important. So, I commend Eddie Redmayne for his Oscar winning interpretation of Stephen Hawking, (Austin Powers in a wheelchair, yeah groovy baby) but let's make one thing clear – he ain't no Bob Hoskins and you never will be. I wouldn't swap Redmayne's finest hour for a minute of Hoskins doing one of his “It's good to talk,” BT ads. Because centuries of breeding and privilege can't beat a prole with raw talent.
Stardom and celebrity is normally enough to ensure the most unsound of constitutions make it into their 80s, so Hoskins' death last year at the age of 71 seems particularly unjust. The Bafta's didn't even include him in their in memorium montage but at least Arrow films are doing right by him, releasing a four disc set of his breakout big screen role as East End gangster Harold Shand who, having worked his way up from the streets, is on the verge of becoming legit and signing a massive property deal with the Americans..
(There is also a six disc box set available which adds Mona Lisa.)
Does the Long Good Friday really warrant a four disc package? It's a tricky question because in some respects it's not that good a film. Shand is a working class boy made good. He's smart and forceful but a little rough around the edges, and the film is much the same. Both Hoskins and director Mackenzie were moving up from a career in telly. Mackenzie was a Play For Today veteran, and the film has a very telly sensibility. It all looks like it was done in one or two shots, with little gaffs left in. Occasionally the staging is slightly stiff, a bit formal, the kind of thing that could've been worked through with a couple more takes. Then there is the score by Francis Monkham, that mixes fledgling synthesizer noodling with muzak saxophones. It's incredibly naff and you'd curse any lift journey it was pumped into, but at the key moments it really works.
It's horribly dated, but that probably works for it. It's the kind of film that today would feature helicopter shots of the Gherkin and the Shard – back in the 70s the lap of luxury was Concorde and The Savoy. Of course, The Long Good Friday is why so many British films are about East End gangster and set against the backdrop of the naughty corner of misshappen skyscrapers.
Barrie Keefe's script is unerringly prescient about how London would burst out of the doldrums in the eighties. Shand makes his big “hands across the water” speech on the deck of his luxury yacht against the backdrop of Tower Bridge as they head east along the Thames and the big property deal is all about redeveloping docklands and at one point, while walking through the deserted wharfs he jokes about it being the site of “the 1988 Olympic stadium.”
Long Good Friday didn't invent the British gangster movie but it did reposition it. The germ of the film came from producer Barry Hanson's suggestion that he'd like to see a Humphrey Bogart film where Bogart was an East End gangster, and in doing this it put the British gangster film into the mainstream: none of that Performance style poncing around. As British gangster movies go, it's a hell of gathering of the faces. Just about everybody goes on to be someone whether it's a life on Casualty for Thompson, a career in East End gangster films as was path ahead for Moriarty and Alan Ford, or for Pierce Brosnan, who appears memorably but dialogue less on screen for the first time here, James Bond. Even Dexter Fletcher turns up as a youngster demanding money for minding Shand's car when he parks in a rough area.
But despite the impressive cast the film is Hoskins, who projects a phenomenal short arsed energy that he doesn't quite know how to control. At times you may think the film should leave it out with the leaveidoutz, that it's having a laugh with the havinalarfz, that it is is over stating its prole credentials but the seamless flow of emotions coming out of Shand makes you go with the flow. He was an infectious performer and you follow where he leads even if a voice is saying that maybe he's a bit too short, and a bit too emotional to really be the boss: surely wielding power as he has for ten years or so would have taught him some measure of restraint and reserve.
He was a strange dichotomy. A man who looked like the negative of an Idi Amin Polaroid but was so overflowing with goodness that he could retain audience sympathy, even love, when he thrusting a broken bottle into someone's face.
Harold Shand is a great performance all the way through but it was his playing of the last two scenes, that makes it iconic, and him a star. In one he has to say a lot, in the other nothing at all. He was equally eloquent with or without dialogue.
Extras.
A director's commentary by Mackenzie.
An hour long making of.
Interviews with the writer, cinematographer and producer
A Q&A at the National Film Theatre with Hoskin and Mackenzie moderated by Richard Jobson.
The original trailer
A short feature showing how some (but surprisingly little) of the dialogue was altered for the American release.
Apaches, a half hour public information film directed by MacKenzie in the 70s. It is supposed to illustrate to children the dangers of playing around on farm land and was notorious for its grisliness.
