The Long Good Friday

Another actor from Wolverhampton was dubbed over Bob Hoskins's voice for fear that American audiences would not understand his London accent. The dubbing was removed after Hoskins threatened to sue Jack Gill and British Lion. He was supported by Richard Burton, Sir Alec Guinness and Warren Beatty.

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This film is Pierce Brosnan's first feature film; his role was meant to be entirely silent, but he improvised a single-word line of dialogue: "Hi".

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Harold's plans for the London docks prophetically foresaw the creation of Canary Wharf.

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Although Pierce Brosnan and Bob Hoskins appear to share the same car near the end of the film, neither actor was present in the close-up shot (each worked on a separate night), so Brosnan and Hoskins never worked with each other during the shoot.

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Bob Hoskins received a fan letter from London's famous gangster Ronald Kray for his performance.

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The film's famous final scene was the first scene shot. Director John MacKenzie, who was driving the car, told Bob Hoskins the film's story and the events to come and filmed Hoskins's reactions. Cinematographer Phil Meheux sat between the driver's and passenger's seats with a 300-metre magazine attached to the camera and shot continuously until the magazine ran out. Because there was no room inside the car to light Hoskins properly, Meheux used a fifty-watt bulb (plugged into the cigarette lighter) placed at the end of the camera's matte box.

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The bar blown up by the bomb was actually a fake wooden bar built in Wapping. In the DVD commentary, director John Mackenzie recounts that people tried to walk in and order drinks, refusing to believe it was a set.

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Dame Helen Mirren's uncle, George Dawson, was a London gangster. She recalled that many East End gangsters were extras in the scene where Harold gathers his troops. "I'd say, 'Ever heard of my Uncle George?' They'd say, 'What, George Dawson?' 'Yeah! You know he went to prison.'".

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In the final scene, Bob Hoskins was told that the camera would be on him in the car continuously for five minutes.

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Francis Monkman's score is so loud in the final scene that it drowns out any other noise, because director John Mackenzie was giving Bob Hoskins constant verbal instructions throughout. Since the sound levels on both sides had to be synchronised, the producers decided to mute everything and lay the score over it.

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The actors held upside down in the abattoir had to be supported between takes to keep them from fainting.

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The film was picked up by George Harrison's HandMade Films after ITC had planned to broadcast it on television. After watching the production he had just acquired for the first time, Harrison said that if the film had started out under HandMade, he would never have approved such a violent film.

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Hanging the gangsters upside down from meat hooks was Bob Hoskins's idea.

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Three years after the film's release, in 1983, a sequel was announced. The sequel's opening scene was to be this film's final scene, in which Harold Shand miraculously survives the IRA kidnappers in his limousine. The project came to nothing.

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In the scene where Harold Shand and Razors enter the town hall to confront Councillor Harris, an additional scene was shot in which both characters enter Harris's office. This deleted scene is included in the published screenplay, but the footage shot was never included in any authorised released version of the film and is believed to be lost. In the preface to the published screenplay, screenwriter Barrie Keeffe expressed great regret that the scene was cut by the producers because of length and claimed it was his favourite scene in the whole film. In its place there is an intimate argument between Harold and the Commissioner that was not in the original screenplay.

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Harold Shand's vision of how the Isle of Dogs could make Britain proud again was based on rumours about the redevelopment of the Docklands that Barrie Keeffe heard from council officials.

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The film's release was delayed by a year as the producers and the government disagreed over its portrayal of even London's toughest gangsters being overshadowed by the IRA. Margaret Thatcher's government was struggling with the reaction the army would face in Northern Ireland and believed the film would further undermine their efforts.

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Barrie Keeffe's first draft of the screenplay was written in only three days; the final version included contributions from Bob Hoskins, John MacKenzie and producer Barry Hanson. Keeffe, who was then living in a flat in Greenwich, could see the abandoned Docklands from his window, and his ideas came together after a chance encounter with an Irish Republican in a pub. Gangsters versus terrorism quickly became a growing concern.

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Writer Barrie Keeffe drew on his experiences as a young reporter at London's Stratford Express in the 1960s, when the Kray twins ran the East End. He met several criminals who took small roles in this film.

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The dock where Harold meets the corrupt policeman Parky is King George V Docks (part of the Royal Docks), the site that now houses London City Airport. Harold speaks there of a plan to redevelop the dock to host the 1988 Olympic Games. In reality, of course, those Games were held in Seoul, South Korea. London's East End and the Borough of Newham would go on to host the Olympic Games in Stratford in 2012. The main stadium was built only six kilometres from the Royal Docks. Some Olympic events were held at the Royal Docks.

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Bob Hoskins's (Harold) breakthrough film role.

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Anthony Franciosa was originally cast as the Mafia boss "Charlie," but left after three days of filming, claiming he was unhappy with script changes.

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HandMade Films bought the film rights from British Lion (a subsidiary of Lew Grade's film company ITC) for £850,000.

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It ranked 21st on the British Film Institute's list of the 100 best British films of the twentieth century.

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To research his role, Bob Hoskins went to court with real gangsters in London.

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Lew Grade was the film's original producer and it was to be an ITC production, but he pulled the plug when he learned the plot involved the IRA. The film was then picked up by George Harrison and eventually released by Harrison's HandMade Films.

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A version prepared for American audiences opens with a glossary of the Cockney and London gangster terms used throughout the film, along with a screen showing their definitions. This has been suggested as the inspiration for director Quentin Tarantino opening Pulp Fiction (1994) with the written definition of "pulp fiction."

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'The Long Good Friday' is the only original screenplay written for a theatrically released film by the celebrated playwright Barrie Keeffe.

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Michael Caine was so impressed by this film that he regularly hired its star, Bob Hoskins, and director John Mackenzie for some of his films.

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Bob Hoskins and Dame Helen Mirren appeared in Last Orders (2001). He also wrote her obituary in The Guardian.

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Bob Hoskins did not work for a year after appearing in this film.

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The role of Harold Shand was written specifically for Bob Hoskins.

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Barrie Keeffe wrote a sequel titled "Black Easter Monday," which never came to fruition. In hindsight, Keeffe was relieved the film was never made, as "no one wants to see Casablanca II."

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Harold Shand was meant to embody Margaret Thatcher's drive toward capitalism. In reality, Bob Hoskins was fiercely opposed to Thatcher.

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This film is part of spine number 26 of the Criterion Collection.

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P. H. Moriarty and Alan Ford played the main villains in Guy Ritchie's gangster films: Moriarty in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Ford in Snatch (2000).

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Pierce Brosnan was amused that he had to audition for his role because the film has no dialogue.

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The film's theatrical release was delayed. It was completed in 1979, but was not shown at film festivals until November 1980 and did not enter commercial release until early 1981.

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One of two 1980s thrillers in which a character played by Pierce Brosnan seduces another man so that he will later kill him. The other was The Fourth Protocol (1987), also directed by John Mackenzie.

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The final scene of this film was copied, almost shot for shot, and, with the same iconic Francis Monkman music, appeared in the final episode (S.3 E.3) of the mock BBC rock documentary The Life of Rock with Brian Pern (2014). On that occasion the musician Peter Gabriel takes on the role originally played by Pierce Brosnan. The actor Alan Ford, who appears in this film, also turns up in rock documentaries as a different character.

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His uncredited appearance was George Coulouris's (Gus) last feature film and marked the end of a nearly fifty-year screen career. Before his retirement he would take roles in television productions.

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The first of Bob Hoskins and director John Mackenzie's collaborations on a feature film. The other was Beyond the Limit (1983).

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The pier where Harold's boat docks is West India Quay, now part of the Canary Wharf Estate.

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Kim Taylforth was originally cast in the small role of Sherry. Unfortunately, striking airlines had left her stranded in the US, so she suggested her sister Gillian Taylforth take the role. It became one of the turning points in Gillian's career and led to her being cast in EastEnders (1985) four years later.

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Barrie Keeffe said that when the film was released he heard both that it glorified the IRA almost as much as the film's near-good guys and that the IRA might target cinemas showing it. He was confused as to why the IRA would target cinemas that glorified them.

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Barrie Keeffe began writing the script on Good Friday and finished it at the end of the Easter weekend. He set himself this project because he generally regarded the Easter weekend as a boring time of year.

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Derek Thompson received an "introducing" credit. He would later appear in the series "The Gentle Touch", but he is best known for playing Charlie Fairhead in the BBC series "Casualty" for thirty-eight years, finally retiring in 2024 at the age of 76.

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Karl Howman and Gillian Taylforth, who had small roles, would of course go on to appear in the BBC soap opera EastEnders (1985), set in London's East End.

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The writer Barrie Keeffe was a regular at the famous Two Puddings pub in Stratford and drew many characters from the people he met at the bar.

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The film's story covers the weekend of 13-14 April 1979.

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A remake of this film was announced in May 2007 but was never made.

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Bob Hoskins was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and won the Evening Standard Film Award for his performance as the gangster Harold Shand.

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The fact that a sequel to the film was being considered in 1983 would prove that turning it into a credible plot was a daunting task. If Harold had miraculously survived the IRA assassins after all, he would have faced the following grim circumstances in the sequel: his two senior lieutenants Jeff and Razors were killed; the councillor he had bought, Harris, was likewise killed; his girlfriend Victoria had most likely died at the hands of the IRA abductors; his partnership with the American gangsters Charlie and Tony had failed; and finally the IRA's long memory.

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The HS 10 plate on Harold's Rolls Royce was fictitious. The blue Ford Cortina 2.0 Ghia seen throughout the film was registered in April 1979 as EOY 102T. The black Jaguar XJ6 Series II 4.2 seen throughout the film was actually registered on 1 August 1978 as a blue XJ with the registration number YPD 596T. The Mercedes hearse seen at the train station is a black 230 diesel automatic, first registered in Britain in September 1973 with the registration THX 260M. The hearse seen at the train station is a Ford Granada Mark 1 3.0GL, first registered in Britain in September 1973 with the registration NLC 999P. The registration plate of the red Mercedes convertible "Pagoda" model driven by Geoff is very hard to find, but this one, DRT 209H, is registered in 1969 in the United Kingdom. Surprisingly, the car has a pre-1973 black and silver rear plate, but a more modern black plate on a white front plate. The silver Renault 5, POU 206M, was registered as blue on 1 September 1973. The blue Mini was first registered in the United Kingdom on 1 September 1972 with the registration SWT 528L. The Citroen CX Super Estate registered TUV 598S entered the United Kingdom on 5 August 1977. It was recorded as blue and is blue on screen; we have seen that this is an unusual case in terms of the colour matching of the registration numbers in this film.

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The film's pitch was whether Humphrey Bogart could be a Cockney gangster.

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The BMW 2500 that Colin jokes about at the start of the film is actually registered as black, not the blue shown in the film. Registration RAP 911M (May 1974 model).

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The Long Good Friday is a 1980 British gangster film directed by John Mackenzie from a screenplay by Barrie Keeffe. Starring Bob Hoskins and Dame Helen Mirren and set in London, the film brings together events and concerns of the late 1970s, including mid-level political and police corruption and IRA fundraising. The supporting cast includes Eddie Constantine, Dave King, Bryan Marshall, Derek Thompson, P. H. Moriarty, Paul Freeman and, in his first film, a 25-year-old Pierce Brosnan.

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