The Long Good Friday

East-End gangster Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins), sees a lucrative new property development opportunity in London. Unfortunately for him, a mysterious gang begins to muscle in on his operation. He sets out to discover who they are, and ends up in a bloody conflict with the IRA.

The film anticipated the massive redevelopment of the then-derelict London docklands in the 1980s. Bob Hoskins received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actor in 1982.

“The best British thriller of the 1970s was John MacKenzie’s The Long Good Friday (1979) which found itself in familiar controversy because of the way it represented the IRA. In the film, the stable criminal empire of London godfather Harry Shand (Bob Hoskins) is disrupted when the IRA move into his patch. After a brutal struggle for control Shand is ultimately defeated precisely because the IRA are not criminals and therefore cannot be bought, bribed or frightened into submission. The political commitment of the IRA ensures that, in the immortal phrase of Don Corleone in Coppola’s The Godfather, these are not people “he can do business with”. The producers of the film ACC demanded cuts to the final version which would remove references to the IRA as a highly organised political unit. The controversy was only resolved and the film’s distribution assured when it was sold to Handmade Films, the company founded by ex-Beatle George Harrison.”

Martin McLoone, ‘Film, Televsion and The Troubles’

Clip courtesy Handmade Films

© 1979 Handmade Films (1981) Partnership

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