1970s drama film crime film LGBTQ-related film

Performance

1970 · United Kingdom · 105 min

Director: Nicolas Roeg, Donald Cammell
Screenplay: Donald Cammell
Producer: Sanford Lieberson
Music: Jack Nitzsche
Cinematography: Nicolas Roeg
Editing: Antony Gibbs
Production company: Goodtimes Enterprises

What the critics say

85 % Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews

Cast

John Creasey

What it is about

Chas is a violent enforcer for Harry Flowers, a gang boss in East London. After a falling-out that leaves him in serious trouble, he decides to quit and finds himself running from people who were once his allies. He ends up hiding in a Notting Hill house shared by Turner, a reclusive, eccentric former rock star, and two women, Pherber and Lucy. Chas and Turner initially dislike each other, but gradually they begin to influence one another in ways that unsettle both their sense of identity and their way of life.

How it was made

Donald Cammell first conceived the project as a light, swinging-sixties romp, and Marlon Brando was once considered for the gangster role. James Fox took over and spent months in South London's criminal underworld researching the part. As the script darkened, Cammell and Nicolas Roeg shaped a dense, intellectual film about identity, drawing on Jorge Luis Borges and on Antonin Artaud's ideas about performance and madness. Warner Bros., expecting something like A Hard Day's Night, got a dark, experimental work. The budget was US$1.5 million. A planned Rolling Stones soundtrack never materialised, and the music came from other sources.

Reception and legacy

The studio shelved the film, judging it senseless as a commercial product, so it reached cinemas only in 1970, after a re-edit supervised by Cammell. Critical reaction was mixed at first, but its reputation has grown, and it is now regarded as one of the most influential and innovative British films of the 1970s.