Villain

Cast: Richard Burton, Ian McShane, and Nigel Davenport

Director: Michael Tuchner

108 minutes (18) 1971

Studio Canal Vintage Classics

Blu-ray region B

[Released 30th March]

Rating: 6/10

Review by J.C. Hartley

Somewhere there is probably a learned article, or breathless blog, about gay gangsters in British cinema. But let’s acknowledge that gay is perhaps too gentle a term, redolent of theatrical aestheticism, a world away from the manner in which homosexuality was used in a spate of British films of the 1960s, and thereafter, and invariably tied-up with the pathology of violence.

The locus for the portrayal of the homosexual thug was of course the eventual conviction of the Kray twins in 1969. Once they had been safely put away, lurid stories emerged, not only about their reign of terror, but the fascination they exerted upon a variety of figures from various walks of life. They hobnobbed with stars of popular culture, many of whom were vocal in support of them as decent working-class lads just trying to make a living. It was a common occurrence at one time, to read some film or pop star pushing the usual tripe about how the twins loved their Mum, only murdered and maimed among their fellow criminal class, and kept the streets of the East End safe for ordinary decent people.

In their heyday, the twins also found an advocate within the British establishment in Lord Boothby, who received damages from the Sunday Mirror after their allegations about his relationship with Ronnie Kray, when it was common knowledge among the security services and within parliament that the allegations were true. It would be nice to say that times have changed, but then the Jeffrey Archer case in 1987 and latterly the revelations surrounding the repellent Cyril Smith highlight how the British establishment closes ranks to protect its own.

And so, to Vic Dakin, portrayed here by Richard Burton, someone whose catholic choice of movie roles, sometimes driven by sheer boredom, often brought criticism, but who is never less than watchable. Burton’s better acting vehicles, Thomas Becket in Becket (1964), Alec Leamas in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965), George in Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf (1965), and yes, even Major Smith in that perennial seasonal favourite Where Eagles Dare (1968), show what he could do with a decent script and direction.

Villain begins with a horrifying scene where London gang boss Dakin exacts revenge on someone who has crossed him, slashing his victim with a razor as the young man is held by Dakin’s lieutenants. Dakin works himself up into a paroxysm of sexual rage to do the deed, and the link between Dakin’s sex drive and violence is made clear throughout. The harnessing of a character’s sexual nature with a career in which violence is a perquisite involves a certain amount of subtlety otherwise both strands risk being presented as comparable examples of perversion. Burton’s Dakin is presented as a sadistic psychopath whose violent nature is barely under control, violence for Dakin is itself a sexual outlet, the sex act just another medium for violence.

Receiving a tip-off about a wages-run for a new factory, Dakin proposes to ambush the delivery and steal the money. One of his men, Duncan (Tony Selby), is critical of the plan, feeling that it is outside of their usual sphere of operations, mainly involving protection rackets, but he is overruled. To carry out his plan Dakin enlists the help of rival gang boss Frank Fletcher (T.P. McKenna), and his nervous brother-in-law Edgar (Joss Ackland). Protecting the wages are some heavies from the local rugby club, and despite Dakin’s gang weighing in with baseball bats, in a particularly brutal sequence, the rugby players give as good as they get, resulting in Edgar being badly injured. In the aftermath of the raid, Dakin’s nemesis, detective Bob Matthews (Nigel Davenport), closes in, and Edgar becomes the means to bring Dakin to justice. Dakin’s plans unravel when he is forced to abduct the injured Edgar from hospital to prevent him confessing to Matthews and things go steadily wrong.

Alongside Dakin’s criminal plans, and his sparring with Matthews, the film follows the activities of Wolfe Lissner (Ian McShane), a sort of go-between operating on the borderline where Dakin’s world overlaps with members of high society in search of cheap thrills. Wolfe is a glorified pimp, providing what his society connections require for their parties. One such contact is sleazy MP Gerald Draycott, who moves in on Wolfe’s current girlfriend Venetia (Fiona Lewis), when Lissner abandons her at a weekend house-party.  Wolfe clearly despises everyone he exploits, but that doesn’t prevent him expressing irritation when, in a later meeting with Draycott the latter boasts of Venetia’s sexual enthusiasm subsequent to her initial reserve. Lissner is the object of Dakin’s sexual interest, although any potential tenderness is mitigated somewhat when the gangster’s idea of foreplay is limited to him advising Wolfe not to make too much noise, so as not to wake Dakin’s old Mum in another room, before punching him in the guts and knocking him on the bed. Wolfe’s own amoral ruthless streak is exposed when Venetia surprises him with Dakin, and the latter dismisses her as a ‘slag’ to Wolfe’s amusement, and he uses the girlfriend of the man Dakin murdered in the film’s opening scene to entrap and blackmail Draycott into providing Vic with an alibi.

As an extra on the disc, the ever-dependable Matthew Sweet locates the film as a sort of southern companion piece to Mike Hodges’ Get Carter (1971), but notes that while that film exudes a grubby authenticity, Villain looks a little scrubbed and polished, something emphasised by the gleaming colours of this Blu-ray release. There are of course many other points of difference. The audience largely roots for Michael Caine’s Jack Carter in his quest to avenge his brother’s death, and probably chooses not to interrogate his actual career choice. Carter is after all a hired thug working for gangster brothers Sid and Gerald Fletcher, “I do this for a living,” he says while giving local ‘big man’ Brumby a slap. There is little in Vic Dakin or Wolfe Lissner to relate to, and they hardly inspire our sympathy. Get Carter is quite an unpleasant film in its own way, but its legendary status and dramatic set-pieces tend to overshadow the shock of seeing Jack’s remorseless version of rough justice. 

I suggested at the start of this review that homosexual gangsters became a ‘thing’ on the back of revelations about the Krays, and perhaps the first and best film to effectively mine that particular seam was Donald Cammell and Nic Roeg’s Performance (1970).  Johnny Shannon’s gang boss Harry Flowers warns James Fox’s Chas about his vendetta against protection-money averse Joey, because their relationship is ‘double personal’.  When Joey comes onside and takes out his revenge on Chas, and gets shot in the process, the film plunges into its exploration of gender and identity ambiguity. Late in the film Flowers is himself shown to be gay and in a relationship with one of his subordinates. Shannon, who knew his way around London gangland, was demoted for his performance in Villain, turning up as one of Dakin’s unnamed heavies. 

In the source novel, Jack’s Return Home by Ted Willis, for Get Carter, Peter the Dutchman is a sadistic misogynistic homosexual, while in the film version Tony Beckley is simply required to play him as someone with a rather florid dress sense, Beckley risked being typecast as he had already played opposite Caine in The Italian Job (1969) as Mr Bridger’s lieutenant ‘Camp’ Freddy. Homosexual gangsters continue to crop up in later gangland outings, like Mark Strong’s portrayal of Harry Starks in the BBC series The Long Firm (2004),and in the rival gang bosses of Matthew Vaughan’s Layer Cake (2004). Sometimes this aspect of a character is used as a means to add substance and complexity, at other times it is perhaps just some sort of cultural touchstone, designed to trigger memories of the Krays as a shortcut to ‘authenticity’.

Alongside Matthew Sweet’s mixture of insight and anecdote, Ian McShane remembers making the film and the involvement of famed script-doctors Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement. Villain’s director Michael Tuchner worked with this pair again on the movie version of their TV hit The Likely Lads (1976). McShane reveals that the original novel, James Barlow’s The Burden Of Proof, that inspired the film, had originally been adapted by actor Alfredo Lettieri, but La Frenais and Clement overhauled both screenplay and script for Villain. McShane reunited with La Frenais in his hugely popular TV vehicle Lovejoy (1986-94) for the BBC.