When the film opened to the public at the Haymarket that week, it carried an 'X' certificate and was screened four times each day. The third time Caine has played a villain of sorts (even though he’s the protagonist in this), the others being Hurry Sundown and The Last Valley.

It all landed at the right time and Michael Caine was one of the biggest British stars in the world, having just come off The Italian Job and before that Alfie and of course, Zulu. When you look at the British stars at the time, there was probably no one else who could have quite matched Michael Caine either. What does shine through is Ted's self-destructive character. It's clear that he was talented, whether that be writing, art or jazz. But, it is also clear that Ted was not comfortable in his own skin and he would turn to drink to make him feel normal (a common trait in those with alcohol problems).Sylvester Stallone Gets Candid About Career, Regrets, Feuds: "I Thought I Knew Everything" ". The Hollywood Reporter. 7 November 2022. Empire's 500 Best Movies of All Time. Empire. Archived from the original on 22 February 2012 . Retrieved 21 February 2012. a b c d e f g h i Klinger, Tony; Andrew Spicer. "Interview with Mike Hodges". The Michael Klinger Papers. University of West England. Archived from the original on 27 December 2013 . Retrieved 10 March 2012. Dead Man's Shoes 2004". Empire's 500 Greatest Movies of All Time, Empire Magazine. Archived from the original on 19 January 2012 . Retrieved 16 March 2012.

Peter Waymark. "Richard Burton top draw in British cinemas". Times [London, England] 30 Dec. 1971: 2. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 11 July 2012. He discovers that Paice produces amateur porn movies using young women drugged and raped by Eddie and Geraldine; one video shows Doreen as one of the victims. Geraldine found out Doreen was Ritchie's daughter and gave the video disc to Ritchie, but Ritchie was murdered and set up to look like an accident before he could take it to the police.NT: They’re pretty much the same. The book came out in March 1970 and it had already been optioned as a film and was already in the early stages of production by the time the book hit the shelves. Hanson, Wesley T. Jr. (March 1952). "Color Negative and Color Positive Film for Motion Picture Use". Journal of the SMPTE. 58 (3): 223–238. doi: 10.5594/J05041. Gidney, Chris (2000). Street Life: The Bryan Mosley Story. HarperCollins. p.127. ISBN 978-0-00-274082-1. NT: I would say GBH stands up to any British crime novel ever written. It’s a brilliant book. According to people I spoke to, they were surprised Ted Lewis was able to write at all though through his alcoholism. Klinger had been approached in 1969 by another producer, Nat Cohen, to make films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). [29] In financial trouble and shutting down its British operations, MGM was in the process of closing its British studios at Borehamwood [30] and was looking to make smaller-budget films to turn a profit. At this time Klinger's friend Robert Littman had been appointed head of MGM Europe and so Klinger took his proposal to him. [27] MGM agreed to a reasonable but below-average budget of 750,000 (there is some dispute as to whether this figure refers to dollars or pounds) [2] for the production. [31] Within months of agreeing to the deal MGM had pulled out of the UK. [27] Klinger had seen Mike Hodges' television film Suspect (1969) and immediately decided he was the ideal candidate to direct his new project. [27] Hodges had also previously worked on current affairs programme World in Action, the arts programme Tempo and a 1968 children's television serial, The Tyrant King, and all these past experiences informed his approach to his film debut. [32]

Having said that, there are plenty of special features to enjoy, including audio commentaries with Hodges and Caine, a recent interview with the director at the BFI, and an insight into Budd’s career. Crist, Judith (8 March 1971). Gilbert, Ruth (ed.). "Movies Around Town". New York Magazine. 10 (4): 11 . Retrieved 28 February 2012. Triplow, describes how Lewis’ life was a cycle of obscurity with a brief touch of glamour until his early death at the age of 42. Even though he did write nine books his life seemed to fall apart, along with his marriage. When the glamour came to end he headed home to Humberside where he headed for his early death. We’ve got business up north, you could screw things up.’ From the very first minute when he goes, ‘Well, I’m going,’ in essence his fate is sealed right from that first frame, and with that brilliant, haunting theme tune.NT: He was certainly a heavy drinker, there’s no hiding that, and he died of alcoholism at 42. Also though, when you speak to people of that generation who worked in film or animation as Lewis did, social drinking was the absolute norm. Geraldine Moffat as Glenda. Moffatt was an experienced actress who had trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She attracted Hodges' attention not just for her good looks but for her work on Alun Owen's television plays Stella and Doreen. [22] Dorothy White as Margaret. White had a successful career as a television actress and was particularly well known for Z-Cars, but the part of Margaret was her first credited cinematic role (the only other being a part in the 1955 film Touch & Go). She had previously worked with Mike Hodges on the television play Suspect. [22] British gangsters were “stupid, silly, or funny.” This was Michael Caine’s impression of crime films from the 1950s and ’60s, and it was a myth he felt keen to dispel. Having grown up among hardened criminals in London’s Elephant and Castle, he knew the reality was more sinister. The problem, Caine felt, was that most domestic gangster pictures were made by “bourgeois” filmmakers with “no idea” what it was like to live with such characters.

Casting the playwright John Osborne as the Northern mob boss Cyril Kinnear is an interesting choice that pays off. He’s unassuming looking, softly spoken and slightly effete. He’s definitely not your typical gangster, but there’s an air of danger and menace to him exactly because he’s so calm and unassuming. He’d played crooks before, most notably Charlie Croker in The Italian Job and his bumbling cat burglar in Gambit, but they had been mostly lovable, and effectively harmless, cheeky chappies. In his previously released film, The Last Valley, he’d played a morally complex villain/anti-hero prone to violence but there was something restrained and unknowable about his character which left you unsure exactly to what extent he was truly the bad guy.

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On 16 March 2022, the BFI announced that they would be partnering with Warner Bros. and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment for a re-release of the film at the BFI Southbank as part of their retrospective program Return of the Outsider: The Films of Mike Hodges, which ran from May 1 to May 31 and included various in-person events such as "Mike Hodges in Conversation" on May 3; this was followed by a wide release in British and Irish cinemas on 27 May. This release utilised a new 4K restoration of the film's original camera negative, which was approved by Hodges. [78] Home media [ edit ] Up Next: Caine gets up to some historical highland hi-jinks in the Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation Kidnapped What drove Lewis's demons is still a mystery, and Triplow largely avoids the temptation to play armchair psychologist. Lewis did share with many men of his generation a hard-drinking lifestyle that eventually gave way to alcoholism, and there are hints of childhood abuse at the hands of a malevolent headmaster and a conflicted sexuality. But none of this accounts for the gaping moral abyss that Ted Lewis stared into time and time again in his novels. He was, in the end, a genius eaten alive by some unnamed dark force.