The Long Good Friday (1980)

That music takes me right back 20 years. I remember Francis Monkman, who composed it, me meeting him, talking to him about making music for a film, composing. He'd never done it before. He was a rock musician. I'd heard of him through several people who directed me to a disc by a group called Sky. And Sky consisted of a group of musicians and composers who were primarily classic, but relaxed by making these sort of more pop rock stuff. And Francis was mainly the composer for that group. It included John Williams and lots of well-known classical musicians. By the way, my name's John Mackenzie and I directed The Long Good Friday.

The opening of the film, which is this cottage emerging from the dark, was not how it was originally intended. I did shoot a very much more elaborate opening, which went on and on and on, and it showed the origin of a suitcase which is about to be delivered to these men full of money. Well, before that, there were scenes where the money was hijacked. from a van in the hills of some distant country, and you see the money being transported across Europe and eventually arriving here in England. But it seemed to me, as it was pointed out, that this was rather an elaborate opening, and really it was complicated enough without introducing all this other stuff, and it would leave the audience a bit mystified. So I eventually cut all that and started with the cottage, and then took up the suitcase theme from here on.

It seemed to me the reason for this, the reason for this suitcase and why I introduced this is to introduce one of the themes of the picture which I elaborated on considerably, which was the theme of an IRA political dimension to it. And I was always interested in that side of the film where we're dealing with a terrorist organization opposed to a capitalist thug.

Incidentally, talking about the gangster, one of the other great reasons, main reason why I wanted to make this film was that central character. The way it was written, the way it was eventually played was magnificent by Bob Hoskins, and he was the one person I always saw should play the part. But it was the way that character was constructed was the great central bit of the original script. Although we changed many, many things, but that was the core. this character who was leapt from the page. Barry Kiefernau, who was the writer, we worked through many drafts of this film. In fact, we did eight drafts before we even started filming. There was a lot of stuff there that I wanted to find down and bring out. And I concentrated on this at the beginning of the opening of the film with the money and the scene with the guy in the pub who turns out to be Harold Shan's right-hand man. We don't realise that the setting is in Ireland. That is revealed much later. And when we keep going to this cottage, which is also an island, I may say, we're not sure whether they're... fellow criminals waiting or some sort of other more sinister group. And I try to imply that there is something more sinister to it than just other gangsters or crooks waiting for the delivery of money.

Now, I didn't want to reveal at this stage that we were in Ireland or that it was about the IRA, which incidentally was one of the things that worried me when I first started on the film was it was called The Paddy Fighter. And as I said to the producer, I said, that's the one thing we shouldn't call it, because I don't want to reveal that this is about Ireland at the moment. I mean, a very discerning guy, if he was looking very closely at this particular bit of film, might notice that it's Fagin's pub in the background. But you'd have to be a fantastic aficionado, and I've seen the film many times, to realise that. So I didn't want to reveal the Irish connection at all, and so we changed the name. I gave it a working title of The Long Good Friday, which gradually grew on us, and which I thought turned out to be rather a good title. Although I say so myself, with due modesty, I invented it. But it was purely a working title, but in the end, we kept it. So while we don't know where we are exactly, although I know where we are. We're in Ireland, but the audience don't know. It seemed to me that I'd keep that secret, not make it obvious at the moment. And then in the next sequence, we go to Paddington Station, and everyone knows that we're in London, or more or less everybody. And then when we see the coffin arrive, we know we've come from somewhere, and this is the body being delivered. into London and to his wife and family. So then again, it just gives an oblique hint that whatever has happened has not happened here, that it's happened elsewhere. And we'll follow the hearse into town and eventually get more and more involved in the story as it unfolds and get nearer and nearer the main thrust of the film.

We now know we're in London, and this bit will convey quite clearly that there is some sort of scam going on here. There's some sort of corruption and crookery. We know that the Brian Marshall character is called a counsellor, so he's something to do with the local council, so we know the film has a political dimension. Of course, counsellor. See you, Jeff. See you. These crooks are not just... small-time gangsters, that they're involved in a big project. And the idea then was to continue the connection between the body that mysteriously arrived in London. We're starting to bring these strands together to show that the corpse that's arrived on the train with the woman who is presumably his wife meeting it, has now some connection with Jeff, who turns out to be Harold Shan's right-hand man, the boss's right-hand man. So I keep bringing the strands in and making allusions without revealing exactly what all the connections are. And hopefully the audience will remain intrigued, but not quite satisfied. Intrigued, but not knowing enough.

I thought the arrival of the Concorde was a suitable introduction to introducing our hero, Harold Shand, in the person of Bob Hoskins. And I thought Francis' music too was great here. We get the picture of this man instantly. This guy is in charge. And then we see Harold meeting his young lieutenant, Jeff, and we get the connection between Harold and Jeff and the funeral, the body that was being brought into London, and also that there's some move afoot connected with these plans which are dealing with a big deal, big developments. And now Harold has returned from the United States where he has been promoting the idea of a partnership with some big time New York business associates. And now he's looking forward to them coming to meet him in London. I wanted to try and bring out the opulence of Harold's lifestyle, you know, the glitz, the glitz which reflected his own taste, really, but which also was... a reflection of the times that were coming. I wanted to change the image of the 60s London. I do try not to show, you know, the red buses or the square taxi cabs or all the things that one associates with films set in London. And I just try to bring it sort of more up to date than hitherto had been seen and to get away from the slightly black and white image. London, as had been shown in many of the other very good films set in London, especially, to do with gangsterism or crooks or whatever. Oh, Christ, Harold, she's always worse when she's going to church. Yeah. Mother's got really religious in her old age, hasn't she? Church three times a day. It's Good Friday. Have a bloody memory. She thinks Paula is an angel and I'm the devil in disguise. Ah, well, me and Paula have only been divorced ten years. I was really delighted to be able to cast Helen Mirren as Victoria in the film. Yeah, it's coming along. It's one of the things we really felt about the Victoria character, that she wasn't... She should certainly not just be your usual gangster's maul, you know. I wanted someone who had intelligence and strength and was more of a partner to Harold. He went to school with Princess Anne, played hockey with her, all that. And I think Helen has that fantastic ability to look good, look glamorous, and yet be strong. You really feel they've arrived in England. You really feel they make a really good couple, although she's upper class, public school, and he's the opposite. But you feel that they get on extremely well as a couple, and they make it on the screen. I believe them. So I was delighted that Helen decided to do the part. Well, he's French, isn't he? A little bit of chauvinism there, but much appreciated by English audiences. French keys, there's really no other stuff, eh? Not new. Bought them yesterday, 20 quid apiece. But again, this yacht thing, and you'll see later on in various scenes where I use rather glitzy settings... the flat where they live, the apartment with the roof terrace. But the boat is the first sign that that's the sort of area we're in.

So then just along from St. Catherine's Dock, where the boat was, I found this great church, Catholic church, near the highway, actually, just along from Tower Bridge. The religious theme was, it's called the Long Good Friday, so I felt it was just gonna be ideal for this sequence that started.

Again, this business of the swimming pool. Again, trying to get something slightly different, slightly more glitzy. In fact, I'll give away a secret. All the swimming sequence takes place in three different pools. One in North London, one in South. This is North London, actually. It's a diving pool near Mill Hill, as far as I remember. But later on, we go into the interior Turkish bath area. That was another place entirely. as far as I remember. I keep saying as far as I remember, but remember, it was 20-odd years ago, and sometimes a memory is not as strong as it might be. Hello, mate. You all right? Hello, Harold. Having a good time? Enjoy yourselves. Have a good one. Do a try. Alderman Harris. Excuse me. I won't keep him. Those planes came in very handy, my son. Much obliged. No sweat, Harold. The license on the casino, did that go through all right? No problems? Yep, yep. A slight one. What's that? Councillor Taylor seems to think you're a gangster. Leave off! What's the latest on the American? Well, just pampered full of information, everything we've got, you know. What, instant planning permission, all that sort of chat? Brian Marshall is a very well-known actor, but he went off shortly after this to Australia and did very well. I think he's still there. Oh, he comes and goes. He plays the Councillor Harris. A bit of a sleaze-by. That's a character. As a guy, he's great. And what was interesting about this is really the dealing with the corruption bit. So we have Brian Marshall being the corrupt counsellor and Harold controlling him, and then his controlling of the police. And here we see the guy played by Dave King, who's the detective inspector, and then the young guy. Here's to real friends. Again, the theme of corruption of local authorities and police all geared to promoting his business. You know, the lines between legitimate business and crime are very blurred in this. And it's an ongoing theme of the film. A cocktail here so we can clock the marina, then off down the river so I can see the scope of the whole project. Terrific. Have you fixed the moorings? Yeah, it's all under control. Oh, another thing. Harris has got a lot of talking to do this afternoon. Can you keep him off the booze? Top him up with Perrier water or something, yeah? Harold, he's here. Well, you two pipe him aboard and I'll be out, all right?

It's quite interesting, a lot of these characters have sort of gone on and become, you know, quite well known in other areas. Now here we had a guy who came out of the blue. We cast about three different people for this part of Charlie until, for one reason or another, it fell through. And then we had this, I think, a brilliant idea to cast Eddie Constantine. Lady Constantine was a well-known American, a new piaffe. He was a singer originally in a jazz band. He went to Paris and stayed there. He was a well-known character in French films. Jean-Luc Godard used him all the time. Fassbinder used him in German films. He was great, he was wonderful, of course, but the only drawback was he was always dubbed in these films. But here he was having to speak English, and he sort of wasn't used to learning lines, which could be a drawback, actually. Now, if you look really carefully at this guy... ..who is the decoy of Colin, who's in the water, you might recognise him. Although a lot of people never do. Not even he appears. a couple of times, and especially at the end of the film, and they still don't quite know exactly who he is. I'd seen him in a theater show, and I thought he would be ideal for this part, for one of the IRA, because he had Irish origins, this guy, although he'd lived in London, I think, all his life, or most of his life. So I met him. He hadn't done a film before. But I thought, God, he'll be great in this. His name was, well, was Pierce Brosnan. Later Bond and all sorts of other things. I don't think, that's the only word he ever says. Never says another word in the film, but he makes quite an impact like that.

They were all Irish, these guys, who are cast in those parts. This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper. It was nice to show that, you know, the Hoskins character, the Sian character, was such a sort of... complex character, and to even show the religious side of him, of the mother, and certainly it must mean that he was brought up, too, in some sort of belief. This is a wonderful moment where people watching this sequence... I know people who protested to me, who came to me and said, ''How could you blow up a Rolls-Royce car?'' I never quite understood that, but some people are so diverted to sort of Rolls Royces that to harm them in that way was like a mortal sin. I'm a businessman. But, in fact, I kept on refusing. Well, listen, I didn't really blow it up. I only blew bits of it, just looks as if I'd blown it up. Mind you, I did more or less blow it up, but it was falling to bits anyway. I just completed the process. Our country's not an island anymore. We're a leading... European states. Then we had the sort of introduction of another strand in the film, another aspect of Harold's complex character, which was his incredible patriotism. He gives this great speech to impress the American guys, the sort of American mafia they are really, who are coming to invest. No other city in the world has got right in its centre such an opportunity for profitable progress. So it's important... And what is great about Bob, which was his ability to be totally sincere, even when saying somewhat ridiculous things. ..knowledge and expertise... These are the guys who've got the knowledge and expertise, a couple of thugs. But he believes what he's saying. He believes in the character. So we believe him too. And we don't see how absurd some of it is. And why Charlie and Tony are here today, our American friends, to endorse the global nature of this venture. Let's hear it, ladies and gentlemen. He acted from the guts. This was his first major film, and he had this incredible... I mean, it was filtered through his head. I mean, he did think, but he was absolutely it. He was totally involved in this character. And so he could express the most complex characteristics of him, and you believed it all, which was what made the central focus of this film as the Shand character. And the belief in that, and the strength of him, the power of him, the comedic stuff is a major facet of the film. I live in a new country, and I respect the past, but I always keep my eye on the future. Don't touch it, I'll take care of that.

Yeah, good sleep, Charlie. We've got a tight schedule. I want you to meet my property lawyers, the best. And then there's an accountant who specializes in gambling tax. This isn't a horse race. Don't rush me, Harold. Then there's someone you have got to meet. Harold, I said don't rush me. I had to watch this film hundreds of times, you know, directors do when you're editing it. I must have seen it four or five hundred times. And then it gets released and it goes to previews and you've got to go to them and it goes to... film festivals and you've got to sit through that. But after a while you think, I think I know this film, but I don't think I could sit through this again. So you would be invited and you'd sit in the front row and watch. But there was always a moment that I waited and then would go out. And the moment was to wait for the first real big laugh. And if you got a big laugh, I'll tell you about it in a minute, actually. Then I would sneak up and go out and go to the pub or something and come back towards the end. East India Dock, where we parked the boat, is quite different now. In fact, it's now Canary Wharf. And where the boat is actually parked, there is now the huge skyscraper. at canary wharf all of this is built up into what's it called canada square and all sorts of rather very glitzy buildings but in those days it was just falling to bits yeah

There came a time when you would think, if the audience are really going with this, they really laugh. They have sort of laughed a little bit, but once they really give a big laugh, you feel, God, we've got them, they're liking it. And then you felt, I felt I could go out, you know, and come back later. And it was in this scene where Bob reacts to the news of the Rolls Royce being blown up. Eric is dead. A car bomb. You can laugh now. audiences used to roar with laughter I remember in New York we were sitting and it was the opening in New York and Bob was along the line but he knew the moment we would get up and go out and we're sitting and up comes this scene and I'm half rising out of my seat to go out and he gives the line about you don't crucify people outside churches not on Good Friday and they didn't matter not a titter in the audience and We were both terribly disconcerted. So we sat down again for a minute. I tried to work it out. And then I realized, really, the irony of it was not quite picked up by the Americans at this stage. And they were still accommodating themselves to the Cockney voice. But I was quite disturbed. I thought, oh, my God. And they did, actually, the audience was quite different. They liked the film enormously. In fact, it got better reviews in New York than it got here. But they didn't get... so much the ironic stuff, they took it very seriously, which was a whole different way of looking at the film. I was really quite disconcerted, but it was interesting. I think maybe in those days, too, a lot of the American audience said, yeah, I'm now much more sophisticated and much more attuned to irony.

I mean, someone described Bob's performance in this film as a tour de force. And I think they're right. I think it is a quite, quite a momentous performance. One minute he can be a frightening, powerful thug, and the next minute he's like a lost little boy, showing emotion and and you feel for him. And that is really quite a feat from any actor. I did my national service with Colin. We did six months in a glasshouse together. Two kids of 18, six months. But it was right through it, the bastards. It's always been plain manoeuvres. Used to have to hump this blinkin' great wireless about. One winter, snow, blizzards, freezing the bollocks off the ponies. I got lost. In them days you stayed lost till they nicked you for being AWOL. So you're going along with this incredible piece of emotion that comes out with this about Colin never hurting a fly, but only when it was necessary. So you can switch from these. Yeah, Colin, it was very close. Incredibly, you know, sincere emotion. There's another line coming up, which is, almost creases me up. What's going on? Because he's going through this great emotional trauma. They're trying to block me, Mum. Wipe out me best mate. What are they trying to do? Put a frightless on me, wind me up. So he's emotionally distraught, and then the old guy comes in and says they're going to get rid of the body. Kept all incognito, they're going to collect the body in an ice cream van. There's a lot of dignity in that, isn't there? Going out like a raspberry ripple. They're going to store the body in the freezer down there. It's outrageous, some of the lines, you know. But they still amuse me. God. It's quite good, this film. I haven't seen it before. I think it'll always make me laugh in bits.

We go into a club now, his club, but we just really couldn't find an exterior for this club. And so we had to sort of invent it in this street, which is somewhere near Victoria. So what was quite interesting was inside where they go is not really the club, it was actually someone's house. And I wanted to go to the loo. I went into the loo and it was filled with marijuana plants, absolutely packed. I was really quite amazed. At least it looked like marijuana to me. Maybe I'm maligning him. So shortly after that, you see, then we had to find the interior. And this interior actually is on the river. It's a place called the Ivy on the River. At least it was. I don't know whether it's still there. It's near Chelsea Bridge. It's along from the embankment. And it's often, as you have to do, you do the interiors totally different from the exterior. Were there any peculiarities? Usual crowd. Regular punters, nothing really. We're no strangers. A few Arabs. It's a good night. Nothing unusual. Nothing unusual, he says. Eric's been blown to smithereens, Colin's been carved up, and I've got a bomb in me casino, and you say nothing unusual? Well, you know what I mean, Herbert. Parkey, meet in King George V dock now. Right. He's put out a story the bomb in the car was a gas leak. Buy some time. Nice one.

There was nothing unusual when I was in New York, was there? No, nothing at all. Well, nothing alien? No. How much did we pay Parkey last year? 20 grand? More. Right. Then he can start earning his bloody money.

One of the things that was an awful lot in this film were car driving scenes and they drive me nuts because they're the most difficult to do and you put the camera on the back of a low loader or you put the car on a low loader and it's always a very complicated thing to do and driving through the streets of East London by the river and they're often very bumpy streets. This has been all smoothed out, but it was a nightmare to do. And the mounting of the camera, you maybe see sometimes when you do the long shot, I had to mount the camera in such a way that it was separate from the car. You've got to be careful you don't get a slightly seasick effect. This was quite an interesting effect. Yeah, we did that about three times. He nearly hit us the first time. We're on a low crane arm and he comes straight at us. And the timing of taking the camera up so the car can drive underneath, It can be quite alarming. I thought the first time I was going to lose my whole camera crew. We just got it up because the guy driving it was not going to stop. That was P.H. Moriarty. He didn't realize the dangers of that. Let's walk. We can't have bombs going off, Harold. We can't have corpses. I had to stick my neck right out to keep this out of the forensic bloke's hands. Here we are in George V's dock, which is now a built-up area full of posh houses. They still keep some of those cranes in there. They're sort of decorative pieces between the houses. They're like bits of sculpture. This sort of scene, I remember, I thought, I've got it. I had a very short day to do all this. And I thought, well, the only way to do this is to do it in one take, one long take. track with these guys. And this is where you really need the actors to be great. Know their words and the car to come in at the right moment and all. As soon as you start doing this, you think, oh, this will be a quick way to do it. Usually it ends up the long way to do it. Things go wrong. The car doesn't come in. The car comes in and stalls in the middle of the picture. The actor loses these words. Dave King trips up. All of these things always go wrong. It didn't in this. They worked like a dream. They knew every word. They were impeccable. The car came in. Some of the clients you mob are out. Working against the clock like this and doing this long, long take, tracking, and keeping it interesting and getting slightly bigger all the time can be, as I say, if it comes off, can be very good, but it's totally the acting that carries it. There's no tricks. You can't cut into a close-up if it goes slightly wrong. At least I didn't have time to do that. They were impeccable, both of them. And this is when you really think, oh, great acting. If the actors can keep up with that, then they really save your hide. I should have this sorted out by this afternoon, I'm hoping. Been looking forward to this deal of yours, Harold, with the Yanks. The legitimisation of your corporation. I don't like fuss. Calm exteriors. Now, ten years there's been no aggro, and it's all been down to you, Harold. You've had it under control. Do yourself a favor. Get this lot under control before the heavy mob's on you like a ton of old shit. Yeah. You give us that case. You get that checked out, will you? What is it? It's the bomb from the casino. You riding around with a bleeding bomb? It's all right. It's been disconnected. I'll get the bomb people to have a look at it. No, Park. You get it checked out. Bob was tremendously reliable. I mean, he... knew how to deal with all these situations. I think I've said, I'll probably say again, you know, Bob was central to this film. He was the only guy I ever saw as Harold Shand. I mean, from the moment I read the script, I said, that's Bob. That must be Bob Hoskinson. He wasn't very well known, but I knew him quite well. And he had done a great Dennis Potter thing on television. He'd done quite a lot of stuff, but he had never done a major movie. But it was like... It was made for him. It was tailor-made, this part, although it wasn't, strictly speaking, entirely with him in mind to begin with, because it was a creation of Barry Keefe's, but it became quickly obvious. And the producer, Barry Hansen, agreed entirely. Bob and only Bob. I never gave it another thought. Nobody else.

Yes, it was like it was personally tailored for me. And of course, we do do things in certain scenes where we slightly change the dialogue or we improvise it a bit just to make it even more holy or completely his. Oi. Which one's Errol's house? Never heard of him, mate. Going to Brixton, and this was actually Brixton, which we went to. The street, was it Vigo Street? I can almost remember the name. It was a great, very colorful street. All those houses were occupied mainly by West Indian, ex-West Indians or West Indian families. It had a wonderful feel. It felt like the West Indies. And it was, of course, that summer when we made it. It was brilliant sunshine. But the trees, the leaves, the whole feel of the street, was entirely West Indian. It had this very un-London feel. Number 33. Used to be a nice street, this. It still is. He said it used to be a nice street by his standards, you know. But by my standards, I just drove to Brixton. And as soon as I saw the street, I said, this is it. This is the one. And it was perfect for us.

Paul Barber plays this part. Even then, you know, a rising young actor, young black actor getting very well known. And he's done a hell of a lot. He's had a very good career. He went on to do a great television vehicle, Boys in the Black Stuff. He's done The Full Monty. Remember him, The Full Monty? And of course, when he fools in horses, you see him quite a lot. He's a sort of running character in that. What are you talking about? Come downstairs. Down in the kitchen with you, my son. Verbal's with you. Put some deodorant on. I'm heavily into personal protection. This is one case where, you know, we shot the exterior and the interior was in the same street. Normally it's not. Normally it's 20 miles away. But this was a house in the same street in Brixton. Varga Street. And it lent itself beautifully to filming because very often, you know, the interiors are too small. You can't get a camera in, never mind a camera crew. It was quite spacious in a way. We did a few bits of little bits of rebuilding, but not much. And a few extra props we put in, but apart from that, it was really easy to use. That's the worst of going into real houses, of course. They limit your camera angles to such an extent. You'll see that behind Paul Barber there, there's not much space to turn round and shoot Bob, but fortunately there was that little doorway there which helped us. So frequently you're limited as to how you can shoot it when you're shooting on it, because all of this film, every... Every inch is on location. There's no studio sets at all. We couldn't afford it. I think we did it for, what, 900,000 pounds in those days of budget. Well, under a million. We built sets, but exterior sets. We didn't, we shot everything else in real places, but we didn't shoot in a studio. It's the one way to do these things cheaply. Someone's been playing Guy Fawkes and my roles and a touch of George in the Lido. That's what's up, mate.

It's the indignation which Bob uses when he says some of these lines, which would normally crease one up. really make them so effective. He feels it all so personal, it's a personal affront to his amour propre. I had a great casting, a lady called Simone. who actually introduced me to a lot of actors that I didn't know about. I think she actually was the first one to introduce me to Pierce. I think she brought Pierce along. Ceno and Reynolds, her name was. And I think she took me to the Soho Poly, which was a tiny wee theater. And Paul Barber was acting in the little theater there. That's where I first saw him. And it was from that I cast him in this part. I don't know. Caught him. Ah!

I still can't hear anything. I don't fucking know! Now, as I say, we didn't, although we come out of that door, we shot, the actual interior was in the street, but it wasn't actually right in that house. It was in another house. And here's an interesting piece of film history with the wee boy there whose seven-year-old Dexter Fletcher his name was. From Little Acorns Grow. He grew up to be, you know, quite a well-known actor. Played in Caravaggio, in Jude, Topsy Turvy, Lockstock, and Two Smoking Barrels. He's a very well-established film actor. Very clever boy. Lad, young man. Look, you told the Yanks you controlled it here. If they're sticking their milly-milling in, perhaps they want to test you do control it. No, no, it's way off the mark. Leave off. Well, they might check books and finances, but they're not going to start wiping out... They say the nightmare in films are car scenes for me. Anything to get out of doing a moving car scene, but you can't. People deserve something better than this. Dog shit on the doorstep. Every film requires it somehow or other, and you've always got to try and think of new ways to do it to make it more interesting.

What was interesting here, too, where we see Helen, you know, as Victoria, being the woman in charge, being the partner, really, dealing with the other guys, while upstairs, Bob, apart from having a pee, is dealing with his gang. What was quite interesting about this yacht, which we are on at the moment, as you probably gather, is I'm afraid it was not nearly as good as it looks. If you look carefully, it's actually, it doesn't move all that well through the water. And we, this is entirely the art director. The windows are not the shape. We divided it up in a way. We put a wall in where there wasn't a wall. We took a wall out where there was a wall. Anything to get some form of ability to move the camera, because shooting on boats is hell. It's worse than shooting cars. And moving boats, then, you know, you just want to retire. I did a whole picture on a boat once. I thought, I'll never do it again. So at least this wasn't moving. But you see, all of this was decorated by us, even to the H on the floor for Harold Shand, the carpet. All of this was redecorated. It was not a very good-looking boat. We got it for... Next to nothing. In fact, only one engine worked, I think. As far as I remember, it slightly tilted to one side as it moved. Don't worry. But as a film set, it was okay. But all of this is the wonders of art direction. And lighting, of course. Right outside that window, you would now see Heron Dock. I bought this pub about two years ago, Charlie. Around about here. No, to the left would be the big skyscraper of Canary Wharf. Have you seen him drive? Oh, he's walked, sunshine. This pub is going to be blown up. And unfortunately, if you go to someone and say, could we hire you a pub, we want to blow it up, they tend to say no. So we had to build this. Now, this we built in its entirety, interior and exterior. And I picked a spot on the river. which was a gap between warehouses, opposite that street outside the window where the car comes towards us, so I could place it. So this is the advantage of having studio things. I've been able to build things. You can make things work for your camera. You'd never hardly ever be able to get a shot like that if I hadn't put this thing there. So that is entirely a piece of cardboard. And up it goes.

What was interesting about that pub, it was so real. We were on Wapping, right next to Wapping Steps, and next to it is quite a well-known warehouse, which is now lots of flats and things. But what was interesting is we built that, even those little pillars are ours, but you see the warehouse in the background, but we built a sort of what was a car park and everything. Well, you know, before we could get in there shooting, cars drew up, MGs, I remember, drove into the car park, they would walk into the pub, They wouldn't notice that it was not a real pub. On the back wall of the pub was a tarpaulin. But there was a bar, so they'd go in and order drinks. And we'd say, well, look, in fact, this isn't a pub. They'd say, what do you mean it's not a pub? And they thought we were being funny. I said, well, don't you see there's a camera there, and that wall isn't a wall, it's just a bit of tarpaulin. If you lift this wall, you'll see the Thames. And that was the only way we could get some of these people out. They were totally... It was totally real to them. Then we blew it up, of course, so we didn't have any bother after that. This natural gas causes dangerous leaks sometimes. We originally tried to get, you know, an old pub, something that could fall to bits and make it look as if it was blown up, but no one would let us near it. So it was a great advantage eventually to be able to build it and place it in exactly that position that I wanted.

And this was the actual interior. You see, so we can look out onto the river. And we put a wall in there. There was a wall and a window there, but downstairs there was no wall. That's where the tarpaulin was. And of course, this is the scene where We do eventually reveal that it's the IRA who are involved. Now we know who's doing it, but we still don't know why. Why should the IRA be after Harold? The table that you saw set beforehand, it was such a pity, but we had to sort of really trash it, as you can see. We had a beautiful meal on it. It's now sticking to the walls. I'm going to nail these bastards, right? You don't know the height. Well, we're going to find out, aren't we? It's getting dark. People get frightened in the dark. They talk, don't they? Hello, Parky. I'm afraid the dinner's got a little bit burnt.

What did these comedians look like? I don't know, H. I've never seen them before. They just looked like any other mix, every mix. Mix? Yeah, you know, Irish. I seem to remember at this time we were really fighting the light. I had to get this scene finished because we'd blown up the pub and then we had made an agreement that we'd clear the site. It was... agony to get through this scene while the light still held. You can see it's pretty dark out there. We managed to get through it. The clouds were coming in, the sun was going out. I think this I did slightly earlier actually, but the interior I shot last and it was pretty dark out here, but we just got away with it. These are the things you gotta do in film. One big advantage to all of these exteriors was that we did have a great weather that year. Now, here we have the gang. Now, half of these aren't actors. Half of them are the real thing. East End guys who've done a bit of bird, done a bit of robbery, done a bit of this, that, and the other. And they were, apart from being very natural actors, well, they're doing their own thing, aren't they? They're doing what they're used to. They were terrific as technical advisors. If I got anything wrong, one of them would come and say, well, you know, John, we don't do it like that, you know. And I remember... doing a scene where a gun comes out and one of them said john can i talk to you can i talk to you yeah yeah yeah he said look john he said uh you know i've been told i've been told he said but they really wouldn't do that they really wouldn't take the gun out like that not in this situation he'd take him around the corner wrap him a couple of times and then only take the gun out then he said you know he said that's the real way they would do it so i've been told So I got all these bits of advice without them actually admitting that that's how they would do it. And it was really quite invaluable, really. And use the butcher's truck, right? And, you know, if I didn't want to listen to it, I'd say, yeah, fine, thank you, but I'll do it my way. But when it was good advice, I followed them. Share the shit out of them, but don't damage them. I want them conscious and talkative. And lads, try and be discreet, eh?

The casting of Derek, we had quite a difficult time with that because there were so many different characters, and I wasn't quite sure who to cast. And we didn't have him in the frame until I saw a television player, and he was in it. The thing that struck me was that he did have a very good film technique. And I thought he looked sort of the right age. He was to be young, and yet you could believe that he would be part of that. He had a certain maturity in his attitude. So we got him in and got him to read it. And I think we made the right choice. He turned out to be an interesting young actor. How do you stay so cool? And with just enough arrogance in him to sort of fill the role, as it were. Help Vicky out, all right? Yeah. But I want you at the abattoir by midnight, all right? All right. Now, here we are. Again, a real setting. This is not a set. You'll notice the ceiling is mirrored, the floors are mirrored, the walls are mirrored. A filmmaker's nightmare. and a lighting man's nightmare. You get reflections everywhere. We've got people sitting in front there, but that floor, believe me, is a mirror. And you've got to keep the light off it, otherwise you get the light coming in the wrong direction. Phil Mayhew, who was my lighting cameraman, did brilliantly. That sort of thing doesn't happen twice in one day. You should level with us. Not just a pair of jerks out of college. You see, sometimes you see films where the operation of the shot is very spectacular. Two bombs. That affects everyone. Other times, they do fantastically difficult technical things and it looks easy. You don't realize, to the casual observer, doesn't realize just how difficult that was. I'll have the same. So, Charlie, how did you know about the bombs? It's our business to know these things. And Ricardo, a bottle of champagne. It's very cold. And this was actually a club called Régine's. Régine's started in Paris, but Régine's was all the rage in the late 70s, early 80s. Régine was a French woman who ran the smart clubs. I'm being frank. Victoria, unless you tell us what Harold's bad problems are and how he's dealing with them, I'm going to tell you what we're going to do. Tony and me, we're going to leave the table. We're going to check out of the Savoy. And as they were going to have us, so we put up with all the inconveniences and all the problems like the mirrors, reflective light and all that. And Phil actually lit it. You see, he couldn't hang lights or anything. He's lit almost this entire scene. You see these bulbs of light on the table? That's how he did it. Every table was supplied with this bowl, lighting bowl. So it was a practical light, which did an awful lot of the lighting, just added little bits and touches. Very clever guy, Phil. He does Bond films now. He's done all sorts of big films. I think that is an essential detail. Auto, casino, stabbing, a bar blowing up. What is this, a gang war? No. No question. Then what? The next most boring scenes to shoot are table scenes, especially dinner table scenes, especially if you've got more than four people, three or four people around a table. They're nightmares. You're shooting them from all angles. The lighting is a nuisance. You've got to stop. We had one night to do this here. It was all regime would allow us. So we started in daylight, of course, because we'd just blanked out the daylight and shot it all through the day into the night. But it was quite a complicated and long scene to do in that short time. Nothing personal, Victoria, but business is business. I understand.

Now, this is in South London. I've got a feeling it was the Waterman's Arms, down by the river opposite Greenwich. So it's the other end of town altogether, and I wanted a place totally contrasting with regimes, with a lot of sort of East End drinking, East End characters, gangsta running the pub, and all of that.

The Waterman's Arms, I remember I'd been to it years before. It was owned by a guy called Daniel Farson, who was a writer. And he lived near there. He lived down at Wapping. Several years before, I had gone down to talk about a piece of work to do with him, and he took me to this pub. And I think it's still there. And they have entertainment a lot, a lot of music, different bands. And it's quite a lively spot. We changed the name, of course. I heard about this American number, Errol. If there's anything going, put me in. Well, the thing is, Billy, there's plenty of money for everybody. This was where I was also advised about how you would deal with this guy. Like that. Moriarty advised me on that one. I'll blow your spine off. It's not a shooter, is it, Harold? Oh, don't be silly, Billy. Would I come hunting for you with me fingers? If you've got to do it, make a virtue of it. So we used the ceiling. Could have shot the whole scene looking up there, actually. I'll show you the plans tomorrow. Magnificent. High in the sky hotels, would you know what I mean? Something to be proud of. Yes, well, I think it's time we all went home, don't you? As I say, table scenes, total nightmare. I had to keep them moving and I had to keep it interesting and not do hundreds of cuts. If you've got lots in the budget, then you're fine. You can take three days to shoot a scene like this and do all sorts of interesting stuff, but you've got one night, it's difficult. A bit of ingenuity helps. I'll tell you what. We'll have some more brownies at the bar, eh? I'll tell you all about my plans, Charlie. Now, don't be hostile, okay? Jeff. Hello, Jeff. Charlie. Tony. Everything all right? No, you tell me. Stephen Davis, who's the other American, the tall young man, who is Eddie Constantine's sidekick, I met him because he was an American, but he was over here doing something in one of the theaters like the Almeida or one of these sort of theaters. Bob Hoskins, then agent, knew him quite well. I didn't want to go in for cliches of, because at that time we're trying to indicate that any of the mafia bosses were all becoming businessmen in America, not looking like James Cagney anymore or whatever, or Edward G. Robinson, they were all becoming suave. And I thought he epitomized that sort of look. That bloody Harris is a liability. Four doubles. Any news? No, I'm not here. Where the yanks gone? I've just bought some more brandies. Go home, Harris, go home. Don't look down your nose at me, Victoria. Makes you go cross-eyed. You can't even see that I'm not the real bastard he is. Aren't you? I'll get you a cab home, counsellor. I'll talk to you later. Okay. Bastard.

Now, here was a huge bit of lighting. This was, again, a Bloomin' Motor car, so how did we make it different? We had to light the whole of St. Paul's. Well, not quite, because it was a lot of floodlight anyway, but we had to add to it. We had to add to the streets on either side coming down from St. Paul's. And again, it's a travelling car shot. Nightmare again. Total nightmare. Helen did very well, although we were pulling that car, so, I mean, she could actually drive it without putting her hand on the wheel. But it's still tricky, that time of night, to get enough light and to, at the same time, you know, light a whole street on a small-budget film. Than a lot of people do. Well, yeah. Must be my sparkling personality.

There isn't much sex in this film. This is about the nearest you'll get to heterosexual sex, which is he fancying her. And it is alone, I think, a very sexy moment. So they go into this building, which is, I think it's opposite the silversmith's hall in London Wall, that was. We're all over the place trying to pick these rather glitzy exteriors. If you miss it, it's unlucky. So then we go into the lift and now we're in a wee warehouse with three walls, four walls for the lift. Not moving. It's temperamental. I'll do it. I quite like the way Derek does it and the way she responds. I hate lifts. It gets really claustrophobic in here with a lot of people. Says her, trying to kid on, she doesn't notice that he's looking at her in a certain way.

Saved by the bell. Good night. Would she or wouldn't she? End of sex scene. Right, straight to big abattoir.

cold storage of meat. Boy, did I think this was a great location. And did I hate it. Well, first of all, there was hanging these actors upside down and they all tended to be quite big guys with heavy guts and things. And it's very difficult for a poor actor to hang upside down. And you know, you can't do the scene in five minutes.

This was the pleasant bit of the abattoir because it was the cold storage bit. It was cold, really cold, but it didn't smell. But it's when you get into the other part of the place where they actually kill the animals that it was pretty horrible. When the next lot come in, they're all tied by the ankles. But while there, I noticed that they brought in the meat on overhead rails. So it seemed to me, well, it might be a good idea to bring our characters in that way. So I don't think the actors thought it was all that great an idea, but I did. I actually did it myself to show it could be done. But then I thought, well, we'd better get the camera up so we... had to hang the camera operator on those rails as well by wire. You see, you couldn't just sling them up easily because they had to be very safe. So he just operated it by hand, upside down, on the wire, so the feet you saw were his feet. But the problem was, now we've got them there, they're tied up with wire which goes up their legs to sort of take the strain off. We couldn't obviously hang them by their ankles. And so there they have to hang. And I've got three hours to shoot this scene. I can't leave the poor sons hanging out. A little bit of water would go to their head. Well, you can see it's going to their heads already in these close-ups. So between shots, I couldn't unhook them because it would have taken hours to take the wire off, to get the stuntmen back in. And it was going to be a very difficult operation. So what we did was, once we got them hooked up, we got lots of big, tall ladders. And between takes, like now or whatever, as soon as we were off them, we would bring the ladders in, and all the assistants would go in at the top of the ladder and lift these guys up so their heads were above their feet at the top of the ladder, but their feet were still tied And it was the only way we could get through the scene. And they were marvellous. They really were great. Nobody goes home until I find out who done it. So that's how we got over that little problem. Look, the last thing I want is any trouble. Everything's going too well for us. You lying bastard. Am I? Look, things have never been so good between South London and the East End. You bastard! You little bastard! But at least it was a clean-smelling area of the abattoir, the cold storage area, and that was quite pleasant. Well, for us, anyway. Not so much for the poor actors hanging upside down. Right, lads. It's your decision. Frostbite or verbals, one of the two, right? When we came to this shot, boy, were they relieved. Cut them down, boys. So we got them down and hooked them. Now we're coming into the main bit of the arbitrage, which is out here, which was pretty horrific. I mean, it was cleaned up every day. We shot in this bit for three days. But they do have a certain smile to them, which is a bit upsetting. A lot of the crew wore masks. It's not that lot. I've had the bomb checked. It's the same sort of device the IRA use. This is a special branch now, Harold. I'm turning it over to them. The animals would be killed, and then we would go in. They would finish off the killing at about 1 o'clock and then clean the place up, and then we would start filming. An interesting sideline to this was, in fact, it was a Jewish abattoir. They actually have to drain the blood off the creatures. They weren't shot with bolts. The animals have their throats cut. It makes it pretty horrific. But as soon as it was over, we would start filming. But, you know, the great thing about it is that film crews are very professional. You know, they put up with a lot. This particular crew, I remember, were fantastically cooperative all the way through the film. In fact, the whole... It was a very happy film, this. One of the happiest I've... I've ever worked on. A, the weather was perfect. B, we were all in London at home. We could go home at night. And the crews were totally committed to the film. So there were very few problems. The odd temperamental actor occasionally, but not much. And the crew working all the hours God gave us. And yet we enjoyed it. No, I'm gonna go home. I need some time to think. Alan, first thing in the morning, that security geezer, all right? Lays this camera, son. See you, mate. Yeah, see you. Dave, do as he says. Put him in a bubble bath. Dave? You heard. Come on, lads. Get in there, I guess. Come on. You heard what he said, right, man?

When we went back to their flat where this scene is shown, it was supposed to be a penthouse flat. We found a place in Fulham. Penthouses weren't all that thick in the ground in those days. And we found this flat in the top of a block in Fulham, which was near Fulham football ground. It was one large room. We had to... use it as a sitting room as we do here and then later on we use it as a bedroom and then later on we use it as a bathroom and each day we had to just clear the entire room because it had access to a terrace which we used later on. But what was interesting about this scene was especially that it wasn't written this way. Originally it was a scene, a lovemaking scene. And Helen's waiting for him at home, Victoria, and Harold comes back. And then they make mad passionate love, rolling about the carpet and all that sort of stuff. It was just slightly distasteful. It just didn't somehow work in the emotion of the piece at this particular stage. And Helen especially was uncomfortable with it. And so we sat around and talked the day where we were supposed to shoot it. And she came up with this idea. She said, look, if it is a terrorist organization, I'd be scared. I'd be really frightened. And so we proceeded from there, and we rewrote the scene on the spot, whereby she shows herself to be a real human being. You know, she is scared of what's going to happen. She's not just a hard-nosed broad, as it were, a gangster small. She is frightened and can see what a danger they were in, even more than Harold. This is where the sort of relationship between them worked so well. Very often, he was the brawn and she was the brain. She would come out with the facts and direct his mind to certain areas that he wasn't thinking about. And she had that degree of sensitivity, which made them, you know, a great, great partnership. So I said, well, great, let's forget the lovemaking. And let's go in for the fear. I had to tell them everything. And I think it just worked extremely well. Mind you, two terrific actors. As I say, we rewrote it on the spot and shot it. I can't talk to you. I'm going to bed. Good night. Well, come here. I'm talking to you. Don't treat me like one of your thugs.

What's happening to me? It's a much more believable, almost husband and wife scene. No trouble. And relates to the way we would all feel. Listen, I wouldn't hurt you for the world. I'm so scared, Harold.

So in that scene you can see this very strong emotional bond between them. It's a good relationship. So this is around about the time when we start to increase the feeling of an outside terror, showing things like stored explosives. which of course related to the IRA. We're bringing in more and more the political theme. So here we are outside a warehouse. Oh yeah, this is quite interesting because in fact the girl driving the car is Gillian Telforth of EastEnders fame. She was very young at this stage 20 years ago. a girl of 17 or something. So it was the beginning of raising the tension even more. The background of fear is brought out a lot. The whole thing about the politics of this and about the IRA being involved was something that I brought out more than was in the original script. The original script, the IRA were there, but they were sort of in the background.

Originally, when they came across, instead of Harold entertaining them on a boat and trying to get them to invest money, he takes them off to, I think it was Stratford or something. There were slightly comic scenes of them watching Trullis and Cressida or something at Stratford and not understanding anything that was going on. And I thought it was a bit too comic and not very... not as funny or as real as one would want it. So we changed all of that and we brought the IRA out more into the open and made the political theme... of Harold being a committed capitalist, fighting the enemy at this stage unknown but soon to be revealed to him as politically committed terrorists. For Christ's sake. Help.

And again, the sort of reflection of the long Good Friday scene and the cruelty of the guy being nailed to a floor. I'm sorry, H. It's all right, Alan. It's not your fault. You weren't to blame. There's some fresh coffee in the kitchen. Go and make yourself some breakfast. Now, here we are back in the flat again with a rejigged, there's still a sitting room, but where the sofa was, there's now a bed. But we tried to make it not look like we're poor church mice who didn't have enough money to build sets. And this was an interesting time again to see the type of relationship where she's thinking things through. Where she sort of directs his mind towards what might be a clue.

You know, last night in the restaurant, I had a funny feeling. Harris being really strange. He said something to Jeff just as we were leaving. He said that I got it all wrong, that Jeff was the real bastard. Why should he say that? So you get the impression that here's a woman that's always thinking, always noting things. putting two and two together and trying to make four, and directing Harold's mind to what might be the solution, might be the answer to the problem, rather. Hello, Razors. That funeral you told me about, something about a bird gobbling Geoff's face, that's right. We'll find that woman. I want to talk to her. We'll get her name and address off the undertakers. How do I know I wasn't there, was I? Look up the yellow pages. There can't be that many undertakers in the area. Yeah, the business about the political theme about the IRA and bringing them into frame here, which we very shortly reveal to the whole audience, is that it did cause, later on, a lot of problems. all the political problems with the distributors, with the Lou Grade organisation, with ITC. They were scared and they thought the audiences would react badly to a subject dealing with the IRA. And in fact, I think the Grade organisation were frightened that, you know, they might upset the IRA and the IRA would come and put bombs in the theatres or something. You know, quite ridiculous, of course. This is Benson. There was that degree of political correctness around, and they just didn't like it. It seemed to me a wonderful theme. Well, you have political terrorism versus capitalist thug, and who's going to win? We know who's going to win. But they felt it was unpatriotic, and all sorts of other things, which made it very difficult in the end to get ITC, which eventually did not present the film at all. It was never distributed by them. and we had to have it bought over by other people. What was he doing there? That jet fuse sent him. What? He was hired. The blonde one, that Colin. Always asked him to do the chauffeuring on the long runs. It's a chauffeur? A minicab.

Yeah, the fact that perhaps the IRA were going to win this battle with Harold was seen as a bad omen for the British, as it were. It really didn't go down well with the Great Distributors. They wanted to get rid of the film, really. Handmade Films, in fact, eventually bought out the Lou Grade organisation and took over the distribution. And that bastard hasn't paid me any compensation. All right, all right, all right. You'll get some compensation. The corporation will look after you. Anything you need? I'll need 100 quid a week. All right. Anything else you want? I just want him back.

I'm sorry. Let me tell him. Get him a decent stone. Send me the bill. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Let me tell him.

Here we are back in Canary Wharf without the skyscraper, just with our little boat. At this point in the original script, there was a very short scene between Bob and Jeff on the boat where he got the information out of Jeff very quickly. And they went to try and search for an IRA guy who had been a contact. This was all written out. And then proceeded with a car chase, the inevitable car chase, which is in every film at that time.

And it seemed so boring, you know, and eventually the car, one car went into the dock and all that. It was a bit of action. And I thought, what we really need is a bit of real drama, real human drama. So we rewrote this scene and extended it enormously so that Bob and Jeff would have a sort of cat and mouse situation, but a scene between them where the Harold Shan character is teasing the truth gradually out of Derek Thompson playing Jeff. And that seemed to me a much better and more dramatic way to take the film. It was just a moment for some really strong, powerful acting. And I thought these two guys, it was just an ideal moment for them. And I think they do extremely well in this scene.

But one problem we had was how to end it. How could we end the scene when he finds out that Jeff has betrayed him? The betrayal by his first lieutenant, as it were.

I think when we first wrote it, the Shand character gets furious and attacks him and kills him. And I was very uncomfortable with that because it seemed so out of character with the way we portrayed the relationship between these two and portrayed the character of Shand, that sort of brutal. the killing of a friend and revenge just didn't hang well with me. I came up with the idea that obviously Jeff should go in some way or another, but maybe the way to do it was to make it more accidental so there isn't a sort of consciously thought-out, planned killing, and to make it look like just a flash of rage. It's a long story. I know, I should have told you, but... And I only thought of this idea about a day before we were going to shoot this damn thing. And it suddenly seemed to me that playing around with the bottle, the bottle could be used as a weapon rather than a knife, because the bottle was there naturally, so it's not pre-plotted, not planned. So I had to get these bottles quickly made, because they're not real glass, obviously. Oh, come on, I'm curious. We had this done the day before the scene was quite difficult to get sugar glass bottles in those days. The idea was that he would kill Jeff inadvertently in a temper, hit a vein by accident, and that Jeff would die. And it seemed to me then that would be more in character with the sort of type of guy Shand was. To deliver money, I mean, to Belfast. because they loved the idea of the scene. I thought they both grabbed it and were pretty terrific in it and gave it incredible nuances and drama. So you got my Colin to deliver Ferraris money to Belfast? Yeah. Geoff trying to remain cool and knowing he's enraging his boss. and approve of mine men delivering funds for the IRA. He had no choice. He has to do what they ask. Otherwise his buildings don't get built. That's why he never has a strike. That's why we use Harris. Jesus Christ! Of all the faces here, you could have used of all of them. You have to pick Colin for a job like that. So while I came up with this dilemma, like he had to kill him accidentally, I'd have to show this on the screen being an accidental death, an accidental killing, and not something premeditated. So I came up with this idea of the bottle, but then I realized I was going to have to show this, show the bottle hitting inadvertently the vein in the neck, and thereby... Jeff dying without it being indulgent. And I've often got to explain this to people that think, well, why did I show it? Well, I showed it because of that. It wasn't an indulgence in liking to see blood flow and spout all over the place, which I don't. So they've put two and two together and come up with the answer, haven't they? I always shut my eyes at this scene coming up in a minute. The vital moment, I know exactly when to just look away. Sometimes the audience don't. I just hate knives and I hate blood. But I had to do it and I had to show it because it was the only way to show that, you know, he did it accidentally and it wasn't a premeditated killing. And it was pretty unpleasant. Does he say anything? No, not much when I went up to him. And it involved all sorts of technical things like special effects, blood patches and pumps and all that sort of thing. Because when you cut an artery like that and it's accidental, it really does, the blood tends to, I mustn't go on too much, I'll faint before this microphone, the blood tends to spout out. Now look, you straight fucking Judas. Didn't do nothing. Maybe you didn't nail the geezer, but it's down to you all the same, isn't it? What are you doing, mate? Don't lie to me, boy. I can smell your lies and I can smell something else and all. I smell your greed and ambition as something disgusting like betrayal. Why, Jeff? Why? He threatened to kill me. I was scared. The other big controversial thing comes up when he says, I'm going to get my revenge on the IRA, and Jeff says, God, you can't do that. What do you think you are? You're just nothing. I didn't. It was Harris. For me, it's... The British soldiers are running around Belfast, you know, scared out of their wits, because these people can come out of the woodwork and kill them. That was thought of as being a terribly unpatriotic thing to say. I was only just saying that soldiers are human beings. You know, if you try to fight an unknown enemy who springs out at you, it's quite tricky. Work with them. It's my manor! Jesus Christ. British Army's been diving about with shit flying at them from all angles for the last ten years, and you're not impressed? Shut up! They can take over here any time they want. Just shut up! You won't stop them. To them, you're nothing. Nothing! The shit on their shoes! You... You...

This is all done on one camera. And you see it's gone up and over and behind. Now it comes around again. If it's on a crane, it can't go to the left there because we've seen that there's no rails there. This is Phil Mayhew again, who was operating while adding cameraman. But what is quite interesting, now we're starting to go to the left. So it's sort of really doing the impossible. And it goes on and on and on. It's all one shot. But what in fact happened is that he was on a crane, but he was sitting on the front of the crane, holding the camera handheld. So the camera would go up and over and back. And then when it went sideways, he stepped off the platform of the camera on his feet and moved sideways with it. You can see how steady the shot is. It's quite amazing. So what looks extremely simple is very complex. And Phil was a master of this. He goes right back to the days when we were at the BBC together and we were doing things on a shoestring. And he could handhold cameras as well as light sets magnificently. So we kept this going all the way. And he's still handholding it. And then we cut.

And that scene again exemplified the fantastic relationship between them, whereby only she could control him in a rage as he was, and then he becomes like a little boy. The thing I remember this scene for was, apart from we're now back in the Fulham flat, having turned it back into a bedroom so we can get outside there, I had a little spat with Helen over this. I remember asking her, I said, this is a great scene that will be sort of Greek, like you're sending your man out to battle and you're taking, you know, she's in control and can charge, but you're almost like a priestess, like an acolyte. An acolyte, she said. An acolyte? What do you mean, an acolyte? I said, well, you know, sort of like you're just serving... She didn't like that at all. No, no, she didn't want to be an acolyte. She would be a mate and a helper and a partner, but no acolyte. So no matter what I said, she wasn't very keen on the clothes picking up and burning. But I thought it was a great scene and I eventually persuaded her by sheer force that she would do it. It was the only time we had a little spat And it was me using the word, the wrong word. I should have been much, I mean, by that time I should have known better. But it was quite an interesting moment. But I think it works great.

Well, I should say, mind you, that these sort of personal wrangles with the star were nothing compared with the post-production battles we had with the film's backers, ITC. At the end of the film, I'd gone off for a quick holiday in Greece, and I came back after I'd delivered the final edit, and I came back to meet with Barry Hanson, the producer, who wasn't looking too good when I met him, and he meets me a bit ashen and grave, and he said, the ITC lot. I said, yeah, what about them? He said, they didn't like it. They don't like the film. Lou Grade doesn't like the film. He thinks it's unpatriotic. And how dare you say those things about the British Army and Belfast, the IRA, the language, they hated all of that. I said, oh gosh, really? You feel a bit like kicked in the guts. You think you've done a good film? They dropped the bombshell that ITC were only going to release the film as an 82-minute TV film selling it to America. They had to edit it down without my consent. And to add insult to injury, they re-voiced Bob because he thought his London accent was too broad. And they re-dubbed it with a guy from Wolverhampton. I'm sure that would be incredibly intelligible to the people in Ohio. I was really absolutely stunned. And I was furious with Barry, you know, but what could we do? I mean, he was hired by them. He couldn't really fight it very much. Bob, of course, was livid, and so we came up with the idea that we should hit them with a court action, because how dare they re-voice the leading actor in a film? It's like taking his career away. He said he would sue them, and we got a huge petition. signed by all sorts of leading actors. And eventually I went to see the then head of ITC, not Luke Greig, but the active head, a man called Gill. I told him, you know, is there no way we can get out of this, avoid this court case? I then told him, by that time, some buyers had emerged, handmade films in the person of the Pythons and George Harrison. This seemed a way out. They were willing to buy the film. And I said, we have got an awful lot of people signing up to go to court to say it's a terrible thing to do to a leading actor. And he said, what do you mean? I said, well, there's Alec Guinness, Sir Alec Guinness, Richard Burton, you know. And I went through a list of about ten names. He went absolutely pale, of course, because they loved stars, you know. And they saw themselves as being, you know, castigated in court. And they agreed to sell it. And the film was bought. by handmade for under £800,000. And we were free off the ITC hang-up. And we went ahead to get the film distributed. You'll have to wait and see the boss about that. Where is he? He's out there. He just won the last race. He'll be back in a minute.

This took about a year, I might say. I've capsulated it as if it took place in a couple of days, but it took a whole year. We got the support of the press because we showed it at two film festivals, one in Edinburgh and then one in the London Film Festival, and we did interviews and all of that, and they were backing us because they liked the film. So it was a very wise move and quite courageous of ITC to give up their claim.

I think I'd finished the film, it was now 81, or 80 or something, 81, before it went on general release. And fortunately, it was a great success. And when it hit the West End, it was very well received. So well received, I remember that I went round one night and looked at the queues. You know, it's a thing you never do. You hear other people say, I looked at the queues. But what really disconcerted me was the guy walking up and down the queue, looking at them, selling them illicit videos of the film. I mean, that's a sure sign of a success if someone's got a lot of illicit videos.

I think one of the things that I did rather well in this film, which often I don't get right, is the ending. I find endings very difficult. And oddly enough, with this film, even when we were writing script, Barry Keefe and I, and we're on the eighth version, I said to him, you know, I know how this film's gonna end. The one thing I know is it's gotta end on Harold Shand in the car, defeated. but at the same time defiant. And I'll end it on a big close-up, and I'll go on and on and on with that close-up. And I knew exactly what I was gonna do. Everything's all right. All the troubles are over. We actually had him going to the Savoy and leaving Helen outside. And then going in to see the Americans. That's where we did do a bit of rewriting again because we wanted one big last patriotic speech defiant from Harold before he was defeated. But that's settled it. Once and for all. Yes, I'd like a porter to... We shot it actually in the Savoy, this, in a suite in the Savoy. Bob came out with this half improvised, half written speech. He kept adding to it and I kept encouraging him. That's the sort of thing I think you could do with Bob. At that stage, Bob was a wonderfully raw talent. And I remember thinking when I started the film, way back, I'm going to give this guy his head. He's so instinctive an act. I don't want to interfere too much and sort of say, do that again. And very often, like in that scene where he kills Jeff, I let it run for ages and just let the camera follow him. I remember once saying, oh, stop there. Bob, when you sit down on that desk, could you not do that? He said, did I sit down on the desk? He was totally absorbed in the performance, and he wasn't aware of conscious actions of his. So I tended to put the camera on him rather like here, actually, when he makes the big speech, and I'd just let it go. I cut to them occasionally, but I just let him do the whole thing. And it's great moments. The only thing you've got to do is try and stop laughing behind the camera when he gets outrageous about the British Empire and culture and him being the exponent of great British culture. An Arleigh Street surgeon and a couple of windmill girls are definitely over. Now, look. Shut up, you long streak of paralysed piss. So I just let it flow. It was a great reward. And in those days, you see, he acted from the guts. He still does, but he hadn't become quite so technically adept. And it was wonderful to watch this talent emerging. I mean, you know, he used his brain, but it just flowed through the brain when it came from his guts. We're in a common market now, and my new deal is with Europe. I'm going into partnership with a German organization. Yeah! The Krauts! They've got ambition. Nowhere! And they don't lose their bottle. Look at you. The Mafia. I've shit him. Yeah, we wanted it to end on a big high note where he was sort of seemed to be totally in control and then go into this end sequence that I always thought we should do, which is end it on him thinking his way through when he sees that he's trapped. thinking his way through the whole scene. And I remember I told him this is what I wanted to do. He was a bit perturbed at that time because he wasn't too sure he could do it. I said, no, you just think the thoughts. And in fact, you don't have to think them. I'll talk them out loud. And I did. I led him through a thought sequence and he just followed. It was quite amazing. Pierce Brosnan pops up again. But what was really quite... Interesting, in that car, you know, in those days, it was a real car, it was a real Jag, and they're not exactly camera-friendly. There's no room. We had a cameraman in there, we had a sound man, we had a guy lying on the floor. I drove the car, and I had to direct him in the mirror. So I directed him and talked him through his thoughts. I said, you're going to get out of this. You're going to think your way out of this. You're going to jump for the door. And I talked to him through a whole series of thoughts. And I got so involved in his performance because he was just like two notes behind me. And I got so involved with him because I was watching him in the mirror that I didn't notice we'd come to the end of the Strand and we're hitting Trafalgar Square. I nearly killed a lot of us. I suddenly saw there was a bus coming. It was that dramatic. It was only Bob in the car. Pierce and all the other people, I did separately. It was just one of those shots I let go on and on. And people said, oh, well, of course you're going to have to cut that. But I never did. And most people find it very memorable. Seemed to me the very best way to end the film. But then he thought of a sequel. It wasn't very possible, because in my head, I'd killed him.