The Long Good Friday

Is the real subject gangsters in London,
or Margaret Thatcher’s ‘economic miracle?’
If you’ve been resisting British crime pictures, this is the one that will make you a genre believer, especially with Criterion’s dazzling new 4K Ultra HD presentation. We Americans who saw The Long Good Friday in 1982 learned that the gangster epic was alive and well, that there was life beyond the  Godfather saga. The tale of the Corleones was a period picture, but this mob boss Harold Shand is a Cockney original with a free pass into the urban development racket. Director John Mackenzie’s film captures the vibe of London in the late 1970s, where pro-business greed is rebuilding and gentrifying the city with mob money. The film has a tour-de-force performance from the great Bob Hoskins, and another just as striking from the marvelous Helen Mirren. Her loyal wife abets gangster Shand’s bid to legitimize his illegal rackets.

The BFI lists The Long Good Friday as one of the all-time top British films, and as a gangster thriller it equals the American classics of the 1930s. It’s connected to England’s conservative Thatcher years in the same way the Hollywood greats were connected to Prohibition. The tightly constructed Barrie Keeffe screenplay introduces a disturbing new conflict as Shand’s mob squares off against an unprecedented enemy.

The story begins with gun violence in Ireland that will soon come to roost in the heart of London. Mob boss Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) rules from his posh penthouse and a yacht docked on the Thames. He controls restaurants, pubs, casinos and even bathhouses with an army of henchmen and coordinated assists from local authorities. Old cronies Councilman Harris and detective Parky (Bryan Marshall & Dave King) grease the wheels at city hall for Harold’s proposal to develop a disused river wharf into a major entertainment and hotel complex for the upcoming Olympics. Harold’s right-hand men Colin (Paul Freeman) and Jeff (Derek Thompson) arrange to wine and dine visiting American Mafia investor Charlie (Eddie Constantine of  Alphaville). Harold has a sterling asset in his wife Victoria (Helen Mirren), a charming hostess who lends him a much-needed touch of class.

Harold’s PR sales job goes great until Good Friday, when one of his top associates is murdered and bombs start going off in Harold’s clubs. Harold fumes, rages and threatens to tear his own organization apart to find out who’s hitting him; in reality, he hasn’t the faintest notion what’s really going on.

Made in 1979 but held up for release until 1981 because of its political content, The Long Good Friday crackles with excitement and tension. Much of it comes from Bob Hoskins’ ferocious bantam Harold Shand. Harold has no sooner returned from America than his top pal is knifed in a pool-spa. His best dinner pub is blown to bits seconds before he’s to arrive with his American investor. While Victoria puts on a good front, Harold dashes back and forth across London, throwing his weight around. His criminal empire is under attack, but by whom?  His last viable opposition was wiped out ten years ago. Refusing to listen to reason, Harold wades into his own organization, looking for the responsible party.

The Long Good Friday doesn’t so much conjure an atmosphere as create an entire world. Harold stands framed before the Tower Bridge, offering himself as a symbol of the future of England, a once- proud empire now reduced to a mere ‘investment opportunity.’ The big development deal would make Harold 100% legit, leaving behind a lifetime of gang struggle. Liberal critics surely seized on this image because it harmonizes with Margaret Thatcher’s shutdown of ‘socialist’ England and her granting of a Free Pass for capitalist opportunists. The timing is perfect: the run-down, empty docks behind Harold’s yacht will soon be transformed into glitzy new developments as public land is leveraged for private profit. Harold could be a new Prince of the City — but his hoodlum past suddenly catches up with him.

The film has some unforgettable set pieces. Harold puts the fear of God into his troops by hanging some of them from their heels in a slaughterhouse — a whole row of hoods dangling like frozen meat. When violence breaks out, it’s always unpredictable, like shotgun murders at a stock car racing track. Harold’s volcanic temper explodes when things don’t go his way. Wife Victoria and best pal Jeff must physically restrain him from going berserk.

The movie’s dialogue contains a lot of Cockney dialect, colorful phrases bandied about without explanation. In America, Embassy Pictures added a short text glossary of words before the film. “Manor” = turf, “Bottle” = nerve, and “To grass” = to inform. The language is fascinating — it’s like listening to a foreign tongue one can understand. We aren’t meant to get a handle on what’s going on in the first few scenes, before Harold Shand’s arrival on the supersonic Concorde clicks the movie into clarity.

All the acting definitely clicks, with Helen Mirren a standout. Not at all a trophy wife, Victoria Shand demonstrates as much nerve as Harold, and is far cooler under pressure. Paul Freeman (Raiders of the Lost Ark) is solid in a brief role as a gay gangster lieutenant. Eddie Constantine is fine as the Yank investor, except that after living in France for 34 years, singing and acting in French, he no longer sounds like an American. An actor named P.H. Moriarty is surprisingly effective as a henchman with a wicked scar on his face. And none other than Pierce Brosnan is in for two short but memorable bits as a hit man.

“It’s like a bad night in Belfast!”
The Long Good Friday takes place over an Easter weekend, and some of its ghastly events correspond to the Catholic stations of the cross. One character is accused of being a Judas and another is literally crucified. The big thematic twist comes when Harold finally discovers what ‘gang’ is tearing up his empire. He thinks he can buy them off or learn their secrets and wipe them out, an approach that proves a big mistake. In this new arena his gangster methods are useless.

This character weakness echoes other movies about heroes who find themselves out of their depth. In Billy Wilder’s   The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes the master detective of deduction is no match for a ruthless modern femme fatale. In the Robert Aldrich / A.I. Bezzerides  Kiss Me Deadly, tough guy Mike Hammer’s macho posing is made irrelevant by an all-negating nuclear secret. The arrogant Harold Shand is a King of Crime, but he can’t imagine a new enemy that fights for ideals, not money. They can’t be bought off.