March 8, 2011 (XXII:8) John Mackenzie, THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY (1980, 114 min)

Directed by John Mackenzie Written by Barrie Keeffe Produced by Barry Hanson Cinematography by Phil Meheux Edited by Michael Taylor Music Composed by Francis Monkman Paul Freeman...Colin Leo Dolan...Phil P.H. Moriarty...Razors Derek Thompson...Jeff Bryan Marshall...Harris Bob Hoskins...Harold Shand Helen Mirren...Victoria Charles Cork...Eric Pierce Brosnan...1st Irishman Eddie Constantine...Charlie Stephen Davies...Tony JOHN MACKENZIE (August 16, 1932, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK) has 27 directing credits, including 2009 “The Wright Stuff,” 2003 Quicksand, 2000 When the Sky Falls, 1998 “Aldrich Ames: Traitor Within,” 1993 “Voyage,” 1990 The Last of the Finest, 1987 The Fourth Protocol, 1985 The Innocent, 1983 Beyond the Limit, 1980 The Long Good Friday, 1973-1979 “Play for Today,” 1979 A Sense of Freedom, 1973 “Country Matters,” 1972 Made, 1970 “W. Somerset Maugham,” 1970 One Brief Summer, 1968 “The Jazz Age,” and 1966-1967 “Thirty-Minute Theatre.” PHIL MEHEUX (September 17, 1941, Sidcup, Kent, England, UK) was cinematographer for 46 films and TV programs, some of which are 2010 Edge of Darkness, 2008 Beverly Hills Chihuahua, 2006 Casino Royale, 2005 The Legend of Zorro, 2004 Around the World in 80 Days, 1999 Entrapment, 1998 The Mask of Zorro, 1997 The Saint, 1995 GoldenEye, 1994 No Escape, 1993 The Trial, 1992 Ruby, 1991 Defenseless, 1991 Highlander II , 1989 Renegades, 1988 Criminal Law, 1986 “Max Headroom,” 1983 Beyond the Limit, 1981 Omen III: The Final Conflict, 1980 The Long Good Friday, 1980 The First Day, 1979 The Music Machine, 1979 Scum, 1978 “The Professionals,” and 1968 “Omnibus.”

PAUL FREEMAN...Colin (January 18, 1943, Barnet, Hertfordshire, England, UK) has appeared in 102 films and TV series and films, some of which are 2010 “MI-5,” 2010 Centurion, 2009 “Lark Rise to Candleford,” 2008 “Agatha Christie's Poirot,” 2006-2007 “New Street Law,” 2004 George and the Dragon, 2002-2003 “Monarch of the Glen,” 2002 Haker, 2000 “Inspector Morse,” 2000 The 3 Kings, 1995 “The Final Cut,” 1995 The Horseman on the Roof, 1995 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, 1992-1993 “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles,” 1990 Eminent Domain, 1988 Without a Clue, 1988 A World Apart, 1988 Prisoner of Rio, 1985 “A.D.,” 1984-1985 “Falcon Crest,” 1984 “Cagney & Lacey,” 1982 The Final Option, 1982 An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, 1981 “Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years,” 1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1980 The Dogs of War, 1980 The Long Good Friday, 1980 “Death of a Princess,” 1978 “Life of Shakespeare,” 1976 “Couples,” 1972 “The Protectors,” 1972 “The Last of the Baskets,” and 1967 “Champion House.” LEO DOLAN...Phil (July 31, 1943, London, England, UK – August 19, 2003, London, England, UK) had 70 acting roles, most of them on TV: 2003 “New Tricks,” 1999 “Great Expectations,” 1992 “My Friend Walter,” 1992 “Second Thoughts,” 1992 “Grange Hill,” 1989 “Surgical Spirit,” 1986 “Robin Hood,” 1984-1985 “Bottle Boys,” 1980 “Juliet Bravo,” 1980 The Long Good Friday, 1980 “Cream in My Coffee,” 1980

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“The Gentle Touch,” 1980 “Dick Turpin,” 1979 Quincy's Quest, 1978 “Accident,” 1978 The Thirty Nine Steps, 1976 “The New Avengers,” 1974-1975 “Not on Your Nellie,” 1973 “The Protectors,” 1971 “Doctor at Large,” and 1964 “Crossroads.” P.H. MORIARTY...Razors (February 27, 1939, London, England, UK) has 32 acting credits, some of which are 2007 The Riddle, 2005 “Submerged” (video), 2005 “Judge John Deed,” 2003 “Children of Dune,” 2000 “Dune,” 1992 Chaplin, 1992 Patriot Games, 1985 “Number One,” 1983 Slayground, 1983 Jaws 3-D, 1982 “The Professionals,” 1981 Outland, 1980 The Long Good Friday, 1979 Bloody Kids, 1979 Scum, 1979 Quadrophenia, and 1978 “Law & Order.” DEREK THOMPSON... Jeff (April 4, 1948, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK) has 24 acting credits, some of which are 1986-2011 “Casualty,” 1999-2010 “Holby City,” 1998 Resurrection Man, 1985 Wild Geese II, 1983 “Women,” 1983 “Bergerac,” 1982 “Harry's Game,” 1980-1982 “The Gentle Touch,” 1980 The Long Good Friday, 1980 Breaking Glass, 1979 Yanks, 1979 “The Danedyke Mystery,” 1978 “Me! I'm Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” 1977 “Rock Follies of '77,” and 1965 Gonks Go Beat. BOB HOSKINS...Harold Shand (October 26, 1942, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England, UK) has 114 acting credits, including 2011 “Neverland” (filming), 2011 Weighed In: The Story of the Mumper (post-production), 2011 Will (completed), 2010 Made in Dagenham, 2009 A Christmas Carol, 2008 “Pinocchio,” 2008 Doomsday, 2007 Ruby Blue, 2007 Outlaw, 2007 Sparkle, 2006 “The Wind in the Willows,” 2006 Hollywoodland, 2006 Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, 2006 Paris, Je T'Aime, 2005 Unleashed, 2004 Vanity Fair, 2002 Maid in Manhattan, 2001 Last Orders, 2001 Enemy at the Gates, 2000 “Don Quixote,” 2000 “Noriega: God's Favorite,” 2000 American Virgin, 1999 “David Copperfield,” 1996 The Secret Agent, 1996 “Tales from the Crypt,” 1995 Nixon, 1993 The Big Freeze, 1993 Super Mario Bros., 1991 The Inner Circle, 1991 Hook, 1990 Mermaids, 1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 1987 The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, 1986 Mona Lisa, 1986 Sweet Liberty, 1985 Brazil, 1984 The Cotton Club, 1982 Pink Floyd: The Wall, 1981 “Othello,” 1980 The Long Good Friday, 1980 “Flickers,” 1979 Zulu Dawn, 1978 “Pennies from Heaven,” 1977 “Rock Follies of '77,” 1975 Royal Flash, 1975 Inserts, 1972-1974 “Play for Today,” 1973 “New Scotland Yard,” 1973 The National Health, 1972 “Villains,” 1972 “The Main Chance,” and 1972 Up the Front. HELEN MIRREN...Victoria (July 26, 1945, Chiswick, London, England, UK) won the 2007 Best Actress Oscar for her performance in The Queen. She is one of only three actresses to win a Golden Globe, an Oscar and an Emmy for performances in the same year (the other two are Liza Minelli and Helen Hunt). Some of her 104 film and TV roles have been in 2011 Arthur

(post-production), 2011/V The Door (post-production), 2010/I Red, 2010 Brighton Rock, 2010/II The Tempest, 2010/I The Debt, 2010 Love Ranch, 2009 The Last Station, 2009 “National Theatre Live,” 2009 State of Play, 2008 Inkheart, 2007 National Treasure: Book of Secrets, 2006 “Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act,” 2006 The Queen, 2005 “Elizabeth I,” 2005 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 2004 Raising Helen, 2004 “Frasier,” 2004 The Clearing, 2003 “ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre: Prime Suspect 6,” 2001 Gosford Park, 2001 Last Orders, 2001 No Such Thing, 2001 The Pledge, 1997 Critical Care, 1996 “Prime Suspect 5: Errors of Judgement,” 1995 “Prime Suspect: Scent of Darkness,” 1995 “Prime Suspect: Inner

Circles,” 1995 “Prime Suspect: The Lost Child,” 1994 The Madness of King George, 1993 “Prime Suspect 3,” 1992 “Prime Suspect 2,” 1991 Where Angels Fear to Tread, 1991 “Prime Suspect,” 1989 The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover, 1988 Pascali's Island, 1987 “Faerie Tale Theatre,” 1986 The Mosquito Coast, 1985 “The Twilight Zone,” 1985 White Nights, 1984 2010, 1981/I “A Midsummer Night's Dream,”

1981 Excalibur, 1980 The Long Good Friday, 1980 The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu, 1979 Caligula, 1979 “Oresteia,” 1978 “As You Like It,” 1974-1977 “BBC Play of the Month,” 1976 Hamlet, 1973 O Lucky Man!, 1972 Savage Messiah, 1972 Miss Julie, 1970 Herostratus, 1969 Age of Consent,and 1968 A Midsummer Night's Dream PIERCE BROSNAN...1st Irishman (May 16, 1953, Navan, Co. Meath, Ireland) is perhaps best known for his 5 James Bond films. He has appeared in 64 film and TV roles, among them 2011 Salvation Boulevard, 2010 Remember Me, 2010 The Ghost Writer, 2010 Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, 2009 The Greatest, 2008 Mamma Mia!, 2007 Shattered, 2005 The Matador, 2004 After the Sunset, 2004 Laws of Attraction, 2003 James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing (Video Game), 2002 Die Another Day, 2001 The Tailor of Panama, 1999 The World Is Not Enough, 1999 The Thomas Crown Affair, 1997 Tomorrow Never Dies, 1997 Robinson Crusoe, 1997 Dante's Peak, 1996 Mars Attacks!, 1996 The Mirror Has Two Faces, 1995 GoldenEye, 1994 Love Affair, 1993 Mrs. Doubtfire, 1992 Live Wire, 1982-1987 “Remington Steele” (94 episodes), 1987 “Moonlighting,” 1980 The Mirror Crack'd, 1980 The Long Good Friday, 1980 “Hammer House of Horror,” 1980 “The Professionals,” and 1980 “Murphy's Stroke.” EDDIE CONSTANTINE...Charlie (Edward Constnainowsky, October 29, 1917, Los Angeles, California, USA – February 25, 1993, Wiesbaden, Germany) is perhaps best known for his French B-movie character Lemmy Caution, a pre-Bond Bond he played in more than a dozen films, one of them by Jean-Luc Godard. He had roles in 122 films and TV programs, some of which were 1993 Three Shake-a-Leg Steps to Heaven, 1991 Tokyo no kyujitsu, 1991 Germany Year 90 Nine Zero, 1991 Europa, 1989 Europa, abends, 1989 “L'agence,” 1989 “Le retour

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de Lemmy Caution,” 1989 “Rivalen der Rennbahn,” 1988 “Les cinq dernières minutes,” 1987 “Teta,” 1986 Macaroni Blues, 1984 “Quei 36 gradini,” 1984 “Une aventure de Phil Perfect,” 1984 Springtime in Vienna, 1983 La bête noire, 1983 The Mikado Project, 1982 Boxoffice, 1982 Rote Liebe, 1981 Neige, 1980 The Long Good Friday, 1980 Panic Time, 1979 The Third Generation, 1978 It Lives Again, 1978 “Zwei himmlische Töchter,” 1976 “Raid on Entebbe,” 1975 Second Spring, 1971 Beware of a Holy Whore, 1970 “Jumbo - Ein Elefantenleben,” 1966 Attack of the Robots, 1966 Residencia para espías, 1965 Nick Carter and Red Club, 1965 Hail, Mafia, 1965 Alphaville, 1964 License to Kill, 1964 Jeff Gordon, Secret Agent, 1963 Your Turn, Darling, 1962 The Empire of Night, 1962 Cleo from 5 to 7, 1962 Ladies' Man, 1961 Keep Talking, Baby, 1961 Destination Fury, 1960 Jack of Spades, 1960 Women Are Like That, 1959 SOS Pacific, 1958 Room 43, 1957 Le grand bluff, 1957 The Gangsters, 1956 Folies-Bergère, 1955 Je suis un sentimental, 1954 Jailbirds, 1954 Dames Get Along, 1953 This Man Is Dangerous, and 1953 Poison Ivy. STEPHEN DAVIES...Tony has had 42 acting roles, most of them on television. Some of them were 2002 “Alias,” 1999 Star Portal, 1997 “Star Trek: Voyager,” 1996 Ladykiller, 1993-1995 “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” 1995 Dillinger and Capone, 1992 Rage and Honor, 1992 The Berlin Conspiracy, 1989 Lords of the Deep, 1988 The Nest, 1987 The Hanoi Hilton, 1986 The Whoopee Boys, 1985 “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” 1985 “The Long Hot Summer,” 1984 The Razor's Edge, 1981 “CHiPs,” 1980 The Long Good Friday, 1980 Heart Beat, 1979 “The Runaways,” 1978 “Dallas,” 1977 “Baretta,” 1976 “Starsky and Hutch,” 1976 “The Rookies,” and 1975 Inserts. John Mackenzie, from BFI Screenonline:

John Mackenzie was born in Edinburgh in 1932. He studied history at Edinburgh University and worked as a teacher before joining the city's Gateway Theatre. In the early 1960s Mackenzie moved to London, where he worked at the BBC as an assistant floor manager. He was one of a group of young, socially conscious and generally left-wing men working at the Corporation including Ken Loach, Jim Allen, James MacTaggart, Kenith Trodd and Tony Garnett. Mackenzie worked as an assistant to Loach on Up the Junction (BBC, tx. 3/11/1965) and Cathy Come Home (BBC, tx. 16/11/1966), before making his directorial debut in 1967 with Voices in the Park (BBC, tx. 5/4/1967) a Wednesday Play produced by Tony Garnett.

Subsequently Mackenzie went freelance, making various one-off dramas for the BBC and ITV before embarking on his first cinema film, One Brief Summer (1969), one of many '60s films to explore a relationship between a middle-aged man and a young woman. More distinctive was his remake of the sinister 1965 BBC play Unman, Wittering and Zigo (1971), a finely wrought psychological suspense drama with David Hemmings as a public school teacher menaced by three murderous pupils. After directing Carol White and the singer-songwriter Roy Harper in Made (1972), an interesting companion piece to Ken Loach's Poor Cow (1967), Mackenzie went back to television. His Plays for Today, such as Dennis Potter's excoriating Double Dare (BBC, tx. 6/4/1976), Alan Garner's Red Shift (BBC, 17/1/1978) and Peter McDougall's Scottish trilogy - Just Another Saturday (BBC, tx. 7/11/1975), The Elephant's Graveyard (BBC, tx. 12/10/1976) and Just a

Boy's Game (BBC, tx. 8/11/1979) - represent some of the best television drama of the 70s.

Mackenzie made a triumphant return to the cinema with The Long Good Friday (1979), which combines East End gangsters, the American Mafia and the IRA in a revenge tragedy that brilliantly prefigured the zeitgeist of Thatcher's new enterprise culture. A further impressive television film followed - A Sense of Freedom (BBC, tx. 17/2/1981), again written by Peter McDougall - before Mackenzie's first American-backed project: an intermittently successful adaptation by Christopher Hampton of Graham Greene's The Honorary Consul (UK/US, 1983). Richard Gere is miscast as the young doctor caught in a struggle between Latin American revolutionaries and the state, but Michael Caine gives a fine performance in the title role. Mackenzie returned to make The Innocent (1985), set in the Yorkshire dales in the 1930s, and since then has alternated regularly between film and television productions in the UK and the US. Caine also starred in an adaptation of Frederick Forsyth's The Fourth Protocol (1987), reportedly an unhappy experience for Mackenzie that emerged as little more than an efficient reworking of Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal (filmed by Fred Zinnemann in 1973).

In the 1990s Mackenzie made a number of modest American films, including a solid cop drama, The Last of the Finest (1990), and a biopic of Jack Ruby, the man who shot Lee Harvey Oswald. For the BBC he made The Deadly Voyage (tx. 12/10/1996), based on a grisly true story of African migrants stowing away on a Ukrainian ship; and the series Looking After Jo Jo (1998), set in 1980s Edinburgh and featuring a blistering performance by Robert Carlyle as a small-time drug-dealer.

More recently Mackenzie demonstrated his energy, seriousness and vigour with When the Sky Falls (UK/Ireland/US, 2000), a biography of the murdered Irish journalist Veronica Guerin. A third collaboration with Michael Caine, a thriller set on the Côte d'Azur entitled Quicksand, has yet to find a distributor

John Mackenzie in Time Out London: The Long Good Friday' is regarded by many as the UK's greatest gangster flick. Starring Bob Hoskins as ferocious mob boss Harold Shand, the film follows his fraught efforts to seal a deal with the American mafia to redevelop London's docklands.

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Meanwhile, an unknown force is destroying Harold's empire from the inside out. Director John Mackenzie explains why he thinks the film's appeal has endured.

The plans [for the redevelopment of Canary Wharf] had been around for several years before we started work on the film. There was a lot of building going on around the dock before 1981 with various big firms involved, so we knew quite a lot about what was proposed. London had essentially been a port and we regretted that all that had gone and it felt like a total area of neglect. The writer Barry Keefe, Bob and myself were very aware that there was going to be huge exploitation and that everyone was going to try to get rich quick. We were very conscious of that and worried it was going to be a mess.

I think Harold would have liked how it's turned out. I think he would have been delighted, because it has flourished – it's a whole new extension of London. The high-rise buildings and skyscrapers make the whole place come alive and Harry would have been at the heart of that. Of course, he also would have been the biggest exploiter of them all. As for the prophetic idea of London getting the Olympics, that was a bit of fun. Harold's thinking was getting more and more expansive – about Britain joining Europe and everything being on the up-and-up – [so] the Olympic idea just slipped in as part of that.

When they got the final product, the producers were very uncertain about it. I'd built up the IRA a lot from what was originally in the script, because I wanted this theme of terrorism versus the state. But the Grade organisation didn't really want to put it out as a feature film. They wanted to take out all the 'offensive' bits that they thought were there, all the – in their opinion – unpatriotic stuff about the IRA, and put it out as a simple television film. That argument went on for two years. [George Harrison's Handmade Films eventually bought the film and released it theatrically.]

I certainly didn't think it was going to become a legend or a cult film like it has. I think the reason is a combination of things. The idea of the classic gangster was important; you got them in American films but you didn't get them in Britain. The James Cagney, Edward G Robinson, Humphrey Bogart era of the 1930s – they were fantastic characters and I was brought up on that sort of thing as a wee kid so I wanted Harry Shand to be like that. People are never totally one-sided; even the worst villains in the world have certain qualities that are liked, and Bob had the personality and humour to pull it off.

If the main character is interesting and strong then it's more than a gangster film, and I tried to take it further than that. I gave him a home background and a woman who was not just a gangster's moll but a real woman who actually had decisions to

make. I tried to give them all a well-roundedness and depth, even the IRA characters.

I also think it's to do with the diversity of themes that are in the film. There's terrorism, religion, corruption… The one that instantly emerged and stood out was the terrorist theme: how can you ever fight a war against terror? We're still asking that question and I still think you can't. But I think all those themes will keep the film interesting and fresh for other generations. I hope so, anyway. The Long Good Friday by Michael Sragow (or the 1998 Criterion release):

Harold Shand, the London crime boss at the center of The Long Good Friday, is more than an antihero. He’s the Antichrist, uniting bourgeoisie and barbarians in a simultaneous

Pax and Pox Brittanica. With the “legitimate” help of cops and city councilors, Shand controls a criminal empire built on every vice except narcotics. His gun moll is a vision of class, aptly named Victoria; you can’t tell whether she’s joking or for real when she says she played lacrosse with Princess Anne. In this feverish 1979 thriller, Shand plans to buy up moribund London dockyards and redevelop them for the 1988

Olympics. His call for a “new London” wickedly echoes the Christian call for a “new Jerusalem.” Yet on the very Good Friday that Shand meets with an American Mafia chief to seal a financial partnership, somebody kills two of his right-hand men, attempts to murder his mother, and blows a favorite pub to smithereens.

Directed by John Mackenzie and written by Barrie Keeffe, The Long Good Friday is a rabidly engaging, complex melodrama, brimming over with moxie. Unlike classic gangster heroes like Little Caesar, who fought their way out of the faceless mob and were punished for brutality and ambition, Harold Shand struggles to control his animal urges and to act like a civic-minded businessman. He detests anarchy and tries to use violence only as a tool. If he’s doomed, it’s because his left-handed brand of capitalism can’t defend itself against the terrorism of the IRA. Harold Shand becomes a sacrificial lamb for all our Western sins. After Shand—the apocalypse!

The movie is viciously funny and exciting, but the filmmakers never let us exult in Shand’s (or the IRA’s) bloodletting. There’s a shocking, blasphemous edge to the imagery, even when it doesn’t involve a car being blown up in a church courtyard or a security guard’s hands being nailed to the floor. As Shand’s civilized facade crumbles to reveal the beast within, the sting is satiric as well as visceral. When Harry hangs underworld associates upside down from meat hooks in an abattoir, he could be conducting his own parodic crucifixions.

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Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren go all the way with the make-or-break parts of Harold Shand and his beloved Victoria. In no small performing feat, Mirren creates a gal who’s smart, sensual, and tough, able to control most of her big shot’s detonations and even, in a wrestling feint, calm him to a standstill. And Hoskins does more with his cheeks and jowls than Richard Nixon: He makes the curve of his teeth look as ominous as a crossbow, and trains his eyes like gun sights on his targets. Hoskins has the gift usually attributed to American, not English, actors—of getting so far inside a character’s skin that we seem to be witnessing vivid behavior rather than bravura performance. In The Long Good Friday, the felt life Hoskins packs into Shand’s bowling-pin body and pinsetter’s voice enables Mackenzie to resurrect the British gangster film. Glenn Erikson in DVD Talk: Gangster movies don't get better than Handmade Films' The Long Good Friday. The BFI officially lists it as one of the top British films, and in genre terms it sits right up there alongside the likes of Little Caesar, The Public Enemy and Scarface. This sizzler is as much about its erathe conservative Thatcher years in England—as the American greats are about Prohibition. Barrie Keeffe's tightly constructed screenplay is not only tough, it brings in a disturbing political element as mob capitalism is proven ineffectual against modern Terror methods. Top director John Mackenzie guides a stunning gallery of actors, topped by a fantastic performance from the powerhouse Bob Hoskins, whose runty, vicious Harold Shand is a true screen original, a convincing Cockney kingpin of London's underworld.

Mob boss Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) rules London from his posh penthouse and his yacht on the Thames. He controls restaurants, pubs, casinos and even bathhouses with the aid of an army of Cockney henchmen and coordinated assists from local authorities. Old cronies Councilman Harris (Bryan Marshall) and top detective Parky (Dave King) grease the wheels at city hall for Harold's planned venture to develop a disused river wharf into a major entertainment and hotel complex for the upcoming Olympics. Harold's right-hand men Colin (Paul Freeman) and Jeff (Derek Thompson) arrange to wine and dine visiting American Mafia investor Charlie (Eddie Constantine of Alphaville). Harold has a sterling asset in his wife, upscale hostess Victoria (Helen Mirren), a charmer who knows how to

smooth out social problems and lends him a much-needed touch of class. All is going great until Good Friday, when bombs start

going off in Harold's clubs and one of his top associates is murdered. Harold fumes, rages and threatens to tear his own organization apart to find out who's hitting his 'corporation' ... but the source of the problem appears to lie somewhere else.

Made in 1979 but held up for release until 1981 because of its political content, The Long Good Friday crackles with excitement and tension, much of it coming from Bob Hoskins' ferocious bantam Harold Shand. Harold has no sooner returned from America than his top pal is knifed in a

pool-spa, and a bomb blows up his pleasant dinner pub seconds before he's to arrive with his American investor. While his wife Victoria tries her best to put on a good front, Harold dashes back and forth across London, throwing his weight around. It's obvious that his criminal empire is under attack, but by whom? His big development deal would shift him 100% into legit business territory, with a lifetime of gang struggle gone forever. The last hint of mob opposition dried up ten years ago—Harold

remarks to his corrupt cop buddy Parky that there simply isn't any competition capable of hitting him like this. Refusing to listen to reason, Harold wades into his own people, looking for the responsible party.

The Long Good Friday doesn't so much conjure an atmosphere as create an entire world. Harold stands framed before the Tower Bridge, offering himself as symbolic of the grand future of England, at

least as an investment opportunity. Liberal critics (doubtlessly the ones responsible for the film's high rating in Brit film history) surely seized on this image because it characterizes Margaret Thatcher's shutdown of 'socialist' England and her issuance of a Free Pass for capitalist opportunists. The timing is perfect: the run-down, empty docks behind Harold's yacht will soon be transformed into glitzy new developments as public land is put to use for private profit. Harold is positioned as the new prince of the city, until his hoodlum past suddenly catches up with him.

The film has some unforgettable set pieces. Harold puts the fear of God into some of his cronies by having them kidnapped and hung from their heels in a slaughterhouse - a whole row of them. When violence breaks out, it's always unpredictable, like shotgun murders at a stock car racing track. Harold's volcanic temper is put to the test when things don't go his way. Wife Victoria and best pal Jeff have to physically restrain him from going berserk, and even then he's difficult to control.

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A lot of the movie is spoken in a specific Cockney dialect with key phrases being bandied about without explanation. Embassy Pictures actually added a short glossary of words before the film. "Manor" = turf, "To grass" = to inform, and "Bottle" = nerve. Some phrases are harder than others to make out but the language of the film is fascinating -- it's like listening to a foreign tongue yet being able to understand most of what's being said. We aren't meant to get a handle on what's going on in the first few scenes, but with the arrival of Harold Shand on the supersonic Concorde the movie clicks into clarity….

The Long Good Friday takes place over an Easter Weekend and some of the ghastly events correspond to the Catholic stations of the cross. One character is accused of being a Judas and another is literally crucified. The big thematic twist comes when Harold finally discovers that the "gang" blowing up his empire is the I.R.A.. While everyone else runs for cover -- cops, associates -- Harold thinks he can deal with the "Micks" as he would any other rival mob, which is a big mistake. "It's like a bad night in Belfast!" Harold wails. In this new arena his gangster methods are totally outclassed. Sherlock Holmes in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is no match for international spies, and Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly is out of his depth dealing with nuclear weaponry. Harold Shand just doesn't understand that Terrorists have the edge because they fight for ideals, not profit. He may be the top dog in the London rackets, but they can blow him away any time they wish. From Wikipedia:

The film was directed by John Mackenzie and produced for £930,000 by Barry Hanson from a script by Barrie Keeffe,

with a soundtrack by the composer Francis Monkman; it was screened at the Cannes, Edinburgh and London Film Festivals in 1980.

The original story had been written by Keeffe for Hanson when the latter worked for Euston Films, a subsidiary of Thames Television. Euston did not make the movie but Hanson bought the rights from Euston for his own company Calendar Films. Although Hanson designed the film for the cinema and all contracts were negotiated under a movie, not a TV agreement, the movie was eventually financed by Black Lion, a subsidiary of Lord Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment for transmission via Grade's Associated TeleVision (ATV) on the ITV Network. The film was commissioned by Charles Denton, at the time both Programme Controller of ATV and Managing Director of Black Lion. After Grade saw the finished film, he allegedly

objected to what he perceived as the glorification of the IRA and it was scheduled for transmission with heavy cuts on 24 March 1981.

In late 1980, Hanson attempted to buy the film back from ITC to prevent ITV screening the film with these cuts which he said would be "execrable" and added up to "about 75 minutes of film that was literal nonsense. It was also reported at the same time that Bob Hoskins was suing both Black Lion and Calendar Films to prevent their planned release of a US TV version in which Hoskins' voice would be dubbed by English Midlands actor David Daker.

Before the planned ITV transmission the rights to the film were bought from ITC by George Harrison's company, Handmade Films, for around £200,000 less than the production costs. They gave the movie a cinema release.

COMING UP IN THE SPRING 2011 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXII:

Mar 22 Bertrand Tavernier COUP DE TORCHON/CLEAN SLATE 1981 Mar 29 Werner Herzog FITZCARRALDO 1982

Apr 5 Nagisa Ôshima MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE 1983 Apr 12 Stephen Frears THE GRIFTERS 1990

Apr 19 Jafar Panahi DAYEREH/THE CIRCLE 2000 Apr 26 Ridley Scott BLADE RUNNER1982

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