Very Naughty Boys [EBK]

by Robert Sellers

  During its first month, Time Bandits was taking almost $1 million a day and, by January 1982, still resided in the Top 20 earners. It was an achievement nobody had anticipated. Palin remembers, ‘That was the best time I remember with HandMade, with Denis ringing me when the returns came in. We were all completely amazed that it was doing so well in America. We were all fairly buoyant about it.’ To this day, it remains Gilliam’s most successful film in terms of box office, and for a time it was the highest-earning British comedy film ever made until a certain A Fish Called Wanda. ‘That bastard Cleese!’ grumbles Gilliam.

  Not surprisingly, there was talk of a sequel. The public’s appetite for one was definitely there, but Gilliam wasn’t interested, keen to move on to the next project, intent on using the success of Time Bandits to get Brazil off the ground. Today, though, he still harbours a tinge of regret for not fully exploiting its popularity. ‘The pity is that we didn’t take advantage of the merchandising possibilities and do games and toys. I think Denis was talking about doing an animated television series, but we didn’t want that. It was partly our fault, we were such purists then; a film is a film, we didn’t want to be like George Lucas and market all this stuff. We were fools, basically, because there are so many things you can do with Time Bandits.’

  HandMade were on a roll. Their first two movies had met not only with critical plaudits but had also proven financial hits. Praise, too, was being heaped upon the company. Stills magazine described HandMade as ‘the brightest new star in the faded firmament of British film production’. Harrison, not surprisingly, was singled out personally, hailed almost as the saviour of British cinema, a label he’d rather have lived without. ‘Newspapers keep saying I’m saving the British film industry,’ he complained to the Sunday Times in 1983. ‘I can’t deal with that. It’s as though I sat down and said, “The next thing I’m going to do is save the film industry!” I’m far too humble these days to think of saving anything — I can’t even save myself.’

  More staggering was the fact that Brian and Bandits had been so popular in the American market, usually a graveyard for British movies, especially comedies. Abbott suggests, ‘Denis was a beginner in terms of film who just had the most amazing chunk of beginner’s luck with Life of Brian. Though the first film I produced was A Fish Called Wanda, so talk about beginners and beginner’s luck! And then, lo and behold, he did it again with Time Bandits. Just amazing.’

  O’Brien’s growing confidence manifested itself in the setting up of a distribution arm to HandMade in September 1980 and the appointment of Alfred Jarratt, formerly of CIC, then one of the UK’s biggest distributors, as its Managing Director. It made plain sense to everyone connected with the firm. Ray Cooper observed, ‘After Time Bandits, Denis sensed quite rightly that we should really be distributing our own films. It was probably to do with collection of monies, being in control of financial reportage, really. If you’re distributing yourself, you have more control.’

  Jarratt’s first act was to hire Brian Shingles, who’d worked with Jarratt years before at CIC. Shingles was to play an important part in HandMade’s history; brought in during the company’s golden early days, he would also be witness to its tragic and catastrophic end. ‘Brian became a stalwart of HandMade,’ Cooper says. ‘He was so important and has been overlooked many times. He’s a passionate film person and he was in charge of literally getting the films into the cinemas; he was in charge of those cans of films. An incredible man.’

  As Alfie Jarratt himself had still to clean out his desk over at CIC, Shingles was left to arrive for work at a practically deserted office. He remembers, ‘I got there in October 1980 and, in effect, HandMade didn’t really exist at that point. There was EuroAtlantic, Harrison’s music, all in Cadogan Square. I went to the first floor which was going to be the HandMade offices, and I was the only one there and I thought, I don’t know if I like this, actually, because there was not much I could do except get the office set up, the distribution side, as far as just the very basic elements, because there was no staff. I’d been hired to do distribution and be office manager and I thought, Well, I can’t manage an office because there’s nothing here. And then Alfie came with the rest of the staff a few weeks later.’

  Jarratt was a big gun in the industry. At CIC, he’d marketed Jaws and was also responsible for picking up Life of Brian, so he arrived at HandMade with a definite reputation. Shingles says of that time, ‘But I don’t think they realised what they took on when they brought Alfie in, every other word was “fucking this, fucking that”. His language was rich. What was funny was that EuroAtlantic were like nothing I’d ever experienced. The film industry is quite down-to-earth and here are these lovely offices in Cadogan Square, the EuroAtlantic staff speak very well, there’s a lawyer with his upper-crust English, and there’s Denis looking like a businessman and a banker, and there’s myself just very casual in comparison. I thought, This isn’t the same atmosphere, this is not what I’m used to, I feel really like a fish out of water. And then Alfie came in saying, “...fucking this, bastards, cunts...” all this. And he used to shout, he used to lose his temper, he was a bit of a bully in that respect. I don’t think Denis and the rest of the company realised this about Alfie; this image they wanted for HandMade was going to be severely undermined by Alfie. And when he was in a bad mood and he had the windows open, they used to say that Denis and everyone else could hear him two flights above when he was ranting. Alfie was a real character.’

  In addition to handling films produced in-house by HandMade for domestic as well as for worldwide distribution and marketing, Jarratt and Shingles were also given a free hand to acquire other movies from outside sources for distribution. But with Life of Brian already released and Time Bandits not yet complete, they didn’t have two spools of film to rub together.

  Again, it was Eric Idle who emerged as saviour. In November 1980, he was asked by Helen Mirren to attend a London film festival showing of a violent mobster picture she’d made with Bob Hoskins that was facing traumatic difficulties; nobody wanted to release it. It was called The Long Good Friday. Idle says, ‘I loved the movie and I thought, ‘This is a hit.’ So I phoned up Denis O’Brien and I said, “Denis, put your money down here, you’ll have a hit film, my boy.” And he did and, as a mark of his gratitude, he sent me absolutely nothing, and I think flat forgot about it. So I never got any credit for The Long Good Friday, but the producer and director wrote me a nice letter saying thank you very much and Bob was always very thankful. But it was a fantastic film. I was happy to help out.’

  Made back in the summer of 1979 and financed by showbiz kingpin Lew Grade, the problems started after the film was in the can and director John Mackenzie had taken a five-day break in the sun to wind down and recharge after a strenuous shoot. ‘When I got back,’ explains Mackenzie, ‘our producer, Barry Hanson, said there had been a little bit of trouble over the film. Grade’s company owned it and didn’t want to put it out as a film at all; they wanted it cut down to 80 minutes and sold to television. I said, “Well, that’s ridiculous, what absolute nonsense, we just can’t let them do that.” And he said, “Well, you know they’re my bosses.” I said, “Barry, it’s not going to happen.” He said, “Well, as a matter of fact, they’ve done it.” I nearly hit him in the middle of Wardour Street.’ The battle for The Long Good Friday had begun.

  Everyone who’d worked on the film felt betrayed by the actions of suited money men who displayed no faith in what they’d achieved, preferring to recoup the budget with a swift sale to television. A cinema release would have entailed costly ad campaigns, paying for prints and so on, and was a gamble no one at Grade’s organisation was prepared to take. Barry Hanson adds, ‘They also wanted to make it marketable for American TV. They pulled in this old white-haired editor who afterwards looked as though he’d had a heart seizure by watching it. He was brought in to actually carve the thing to shreds. They were determined not to release it as a film, quite the contrary, they wer
e going to kill it.’

  Mackenzie was in no doubt that the film’s subplot concerning Irish terrorists had Grade’s people running scared. ‘You can’t let the IRA win,’ he was told, to which the film-maker replied, ‘You want a gangster to win?’ He goes on to explain, ‘Lew Grade thought it was an IRA publicity film and unpatriotic. He was a bit frightened that a few bombs would go off in his cinemas and it’s very difficult to argue with that sort of paranoia. Actually, the IRA liked it so why should they bomb us? But our film wasn’t pro-IRA, no way, because I hate the idea of bombing. I don’t hate the IRA, but I hate the things they did, bombing innocent people, I just do not condone that at all.’

  The real breakthrough came when Friday was screened as part of a Mackenzie retrospective at the 1980 Edinburgh Film Festival. Critics were bowled over and poured public scorn over the decision not to give it a deserved theatrical run. In a wasteland of home-grown movies, critics saw Friday as affirmation that there was still talent and vitality left in British commercial film-making.

  Encouraged by the reaction, Barry Hanson stole the film from the cutting room and started parading it around the industry, even flying with it to the States. ‘I went to Paramount and showed it to Jeff Katzenberg and, I think, Don Simpson. They liked it but didn’t want to pick it up for domestic America. I showed it to a few other people in LA then brought the thing back. Pressure was mounting, everybody was saying they ought to put it out as a film because, by this time, I’d made sure as many people as possible had seen it.’

  And yet the executives at Grade Central (or ‘that shower of bastards’, as Mackenzie refers to them) remained intractable. There was nothing left now but for everyone involved from Hanson, Mackenzie and writer Barrie Keefe, to Hoskins and Mirren - to make public pleas for finance to buy their own film back from Grade. It was a race against time; ITV were already scheduling it for a prime-time slot early in the new year. The asking price was £l million. Hanson took a full-page ad out in Screen International, the UK’s equivalent of Variety, packed with glowing notices (notable amongst them David Puttnam’s belief that Friday was ‘the outstanding post-war British gangster movie’) plus his office phone number begging prospective buyers to get in touch. Both Rank and EMI toyed briefly with the idea of taking it on but ultimately passed. After that, nothing.

  The mood was dark in the Friday camp. Convinced that Grade had finally managed to smother their film, some began contemplating the most extreme measures. Barrie Keefe recalls, ‘Just before Christmas, we were all sitting in our office in Carnaby Street. It was getting dark and there was a Salvation Army band outside playing carols. The film looked dead in the water; I never thought the bloody thing was ever going to see the light of day. And there was Bob Hoskins with a bottle of vodka and two poodles on his lap he’d bought as Christmas presents for someone. He said, “Wait a minute. There’s four of us here... I know a geezer who, for £10,000, that’s only £2,500 each, he’d wipe him out.” It was one of those mad moments, you think, my God, I can pick up the Daily Mirror tomorrow and see Lord Grade’s been wiped out. And Barry Hanson said, “Hang on, Bob, you know it’s a big family, another one would pop up.” He said, “All right then, five grand each.” There was a lot of silliness ’cos of exhaustion. That was at the absolute lowest of the low.’

  Worse was to come when it was decreed that Hoskins’s voice would be indecipherable to American ears so was completely re-dubbed by another actor. ‘The whole thing was unbelievable,’ fumes Mackenzie. ‘You know, the business is full of tasteless idiots. Bob was totally incensed, it’s the worst thing you can do to an actor. So the fight was on.’ Hoskins decided to sue. As the trial date approached, an impressive array of famous names, Alec Guinness among them, agreed to testify that what Grade’s people were doing was tantamount to a prostitution of Hoskins’ acting ability. Sensing things were getting out of hand, Mackenzie set up a face-to-face meeting with Grade’s right-hand man, Jack Gill.

  ‘I remember it was the day before Christmas,’ Mackenzie recalls. ‘It was snowing. I went to his office and said, “This is going to look bad for you, it’s rotten for us, and the film’s going to suffer.” But he was adamant the case was going ahead. I said, “Well, here’s who’s going to be the witnesses against you.” And I read the list and he went pale, he went white. I said, “That will look extremely bad... you’ll be castigated. Now the simple answer is, we have someone who will buy the film and then everyone will be off the hook.” And that did it, we got the film back.’

  Still babies in the industry, HandMade displayed more understanding of what constituted a hit movie than the dinosaurs over at Grade Central. Mackenzie’s perspective was that ‘the Pythons liked it and Denis O’Brien saw that he could make a killing with it. George Harrison hated it, but Denis was running the thing. George was sort of a backseater, he didn’t really know what they’d bought; it was only later when George saw it he was quite upset, he thought it was too violent, but by that time it was a big success so he just accepted it.’

  HandMade’s offer of £700,000 to buy the film was funded, ironically, from the profits of Life of Brian, the film Lord Grade’s brother Lord Delfont so famously turned his back on. Together, these two siblings really were the Cannon and Ball of the British film industry. They represented the old guard, HandMade the new.

  Barry Hanson claims the whole débâcle over The Long Good Friday was the fault not of Lord Grade but his lieutenant Jack Gill. ‘Grade was wrongly painted as the villain,’ Hanson asserts. ‘It was Jack Gill, he hated it. When we were negotiating to buy back the film, we had a joke with the lawyers. Gill always put his name on his television programmes, “Jack Gill Presents”, and the lawyers said, “I think in your case it’s Jack Gill resents to present.” But I suppose Lew did have ultimate responsibility in what was going on with it. But all this was going on in the face of his bloody company collapsing, when he was making bloated blockbusters like Raise the Titanic. Lew never saw our film until right at the end because they kept it from him and, of course, he liked it, thought it was a very well-made film, but by then the die had been cast as to what would become of it. I think it was a pity that Lew didn’t see it earlier and didn’t have any opportunity to get behind it.’

  During the HandMade negotiations, Hanson had no contact whatsoever with Harrison; his dealings were principally with O’Brien. ‘Denis was a bit bizarre, I suppose,’ Hanson adds, ‘but he was straight with us, he honoured the deal I had with the Grade people and we were grateful for what he did. I haven’t had a cost statement from him for 20 years, which we should have done. Not a word about what it did and what happened to it. And we didn’t have a video deal. It was the beginning of the video boom and I remember going back to him and saying he ought to honour that as being non-theatric, but he wouldn’t have it. And I do know they sold it to EMI for quite a lot of money.’ HandMade also left the Friday team in the dark in terms of how things were performing in the overseas market. Hanson for one even had to pay for the air fare to attend the New York opening of his own movie!

  * * *

  Like so many British gangster movies, the influences of The Long Good Friday are traceable back to the Kray twins. Writer Barrie Keefe, born and bred in London’s East End, remembers as a 17-year-old pissing in the smelly urinal of the Krays’ local pub in Bethnal Green when Ronnie walked in. ‘He turned and said to me, “What do you think of this?” Knowing he was gay, my heart was sinking. What am I supposed to look at? I thought he meant his cock. I was terrified. What it was was a gun, and he was saying stuff like, “It’s got a good feel, ain’t it?”’ It was the start of Keefe’s lifelong fascination with gangsters.

  The Easter weekend of 1977 — Barrie Keefe is at home, bored. The phone rings. On the other end is Barry Hanson, a producer with Thames Television, wondering how Keefe is getting on with the television thriller he’d asked him to write. Not very well, as it turns out. It was during dinner some months earlier that both men had come up with the notion of makin
g a London gangland TV film. Keefe says, ‘Barry commissioned it there and then. It was gonna be called The Last Gangster Show. There was no story or anything, it was just like, let’s do a British gangster movie, because there weren’t many around at the time.’

  Keefe drove around the East End and the Isle of Dogs looking for inspiration and found it in the shape of the new Docklands. Keefe hated what he saw, a once-proud area stripped of its vibrancy by yuppie developers, and out of that anger grew the first seeds of his story. What if some entrepreneurial villain tried to muscle in on Canary Wharf? The central character of Harold Shand began taking shape.

  That evening, Keefe met up with a friend for a drink. ‘We ended up in a totally Irish pub somewhere in North London. The band on stage played rebel songs and, at one point, got a Union Jack and set fire to it. When the collection bucket came round my mate was wise to this and whispered, “Don’t say anything, keep your voice down,” ’cos I had a Cockney accent.’

  Keefe couldn’t help thinking this was like the good old/bad old days of the Krays; it was pure villainy, nothing short of a protection racket. A major strand of the film’s plot, terrorism versus gangsterism, had presented itself. Keefe called Hanson with his idea. ‘Write it!’ the producer bellowed down the line. ‘Just get at that typewriter and fucking write it.’ Keefe knuckled down and pounded out a first draft in four days. He called it The Paddy Factor, Scotland Yard lingo for crimes that can’t be explained so are put down to the IRA.

  Despite its shortcomings, soon to be exposed, what this initial script had going for it was an exceptional central character, Harold Shand. Born out of Keefe’s desire to write a part for James Cagney ‘if he’d been a Cockney’, Shand is a gangster extraordinaire, a sort of Cockney Corleone who charms a visiting Mafia big-shot while at the same time protecting his patch from marauding IRA mobsters. The general consensus was that there was only one man capable of bringing Shand to glorious life, a relatively unknown actor who’d recently scored big on TV in Denis Potter’s Pennies from Heaven — Bob Hoskins.