|
Villain (1971 Film)
''Villain'' is a 1971 British gangster film directed by Michael Tuchner and starring Richard Burton, Ian McShane, Nigel Davenport and Donald Sinden. It is based on James Barlow's 1968 novel '' The Burden of Proof''. ''Villain'' was director Michael Tuchner's first feature film after directing in television. As with other films of ''Villain'''s same era and genre (''Get Carter'', ''A Clockwork Orange'' and ''Performance'', for example), some of the violence is quite graphic, especially during the heist scene, and it foreshadows several 1970s cop TV shows such as ''The Sweeney'', ''Target'' and ''Special Branch''. Plot Ruthless East End gangster Vic Dakin has plans for an ambitious raid on the wages van of a plastics factory. This is a departure from Dakin's usual ''modus operandi'' and the job is further complicated by having to work with fellow gangster Frank Fletcher's firm. The film's intricate subplots explore Dakin's sadistic nature, his relationship with small-time assoc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Tuchner
Michael John Tuchner (24 June 1932 – 17 February 2017) was a British film and theatre director. Born in Berlin, to German-Jewish parents, he was seven years old when his family moved to Britain with the rise of the Nazis. He eventually read classics at University College London, where he was president of the film society, and subsequently joined the BBC as a trainee editor on the ''Tonight'' programme. After work on documentaries and commercials, he made his debut as a TV director with ''The Wednesday Play'' in 1969. Feature films followed, and Tuchner's credits included ''Villain'' (1971), '' Fear is the Key'' (1972), ''Mister Quilp'' (1975), the film version of ''The Likely Lads'' (1976), ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame'' (1982), the Disney film ''Trenchcoat'' (1983), '' Wilt'' (1989) and '' Back to the Secret Garden'' (2001). Nominated for a BAFTA TV Award four times, he won for the 1975 television play ''Bar Mitzvah Boy''. He died on 17 February 2017 at the age of 84. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Hodge
Jonathan Philip Hodge (26 January 1941 – 7 July 2019) was a British composer who wrote more than 2,000 jingles for TV and radio, including the Shake n' Vac tune. Life and career Hodge was born in London in 1941. Jonathan wrote the scores for ''Villain'' (1971), featuring Richard Burton, and ''Great'' (1975), an Oscar-winning animated musical documentary about engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel directed by Bob Godfrey. He also wrote and produced ''Fiddley Foodle Bird'' (1992), a children’s animated series for the BBC narrated by Bruce Forsyth, wrote pop music and had a No.3 hit in 1978 with "If I Had Words sung by Scott Fitzgerald and Yvonne Keeley. The song sold millions worldwide. He died on 7 July 2019 at the age of 78 at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent Ashford is a town in the county of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Great Stour at the southern or Escarpment, scarp edge of the North Downs, about southeast of central London an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackmail
Blackmail is an act of coercion using the threat of revealing or publicizing either substantially true or false information about a person or people unless certain demands are met. It is often damaging information, and it may be revealed to family members or associates rather than to the general public. These acts can also involve using threats of physical, mental or emotional harm, or of criminal prosecution, against the victim or someone close to the victim. It is normally carried out for personal gain, most commonly of position, money, or property. Blackmail may also be considered a form of extortion. Although the two are generally synonymous, extortion is the taking of personal property by threat of future harm. Blackmail is the use of threat to prevent another from engaging in a lawful occupation and writing libelous letters or letters that provoke a breach of the peace, as well as use of intimidation for purposes of collecting an unpaid debt. In many jurisdictions, bla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modus Operandi
A ''modus operandi'' (often shortened to M.O.) is someone's habits of working, particularly in the context of business or criminal investigations, but also more generally. It is a Latin phrase, approximately translated as "mode (or manner) of operating". Term The term is often used in police work when discussing crime and addressing the methods employed by criminals. It is also used in criminal profiling, where it can help in finding clues to the offender's psychology. It largely consists of examining the actions used by the individuals to execute the crime, prevent its detection and facilitate escape.Douglas, J. E. and A. W. Burgess, A. G. Burgess, R. K. Ressler. ''Crime classification manual'' (John Wiley & Sons, 2006) , p. 19-21. A suspect's ''modus operandi'' can assist in their identification, apprehension, or repression, and can also be used to determine links between crimes.Berg, B.L. ''Criminal Investigation'' (McGraw Hill, 2008) In business, ''modus operandi'' is used ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East End Of London
The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have universally accepted boundaries to the north and east, though the River Lea is sometimes seen as the eastern boundary. Parts of it may be regarded as lying within Central London (though that term too has no precise definition). The term "East of Aldgate Pump" is sometimes used as a synonym for the area. The East End began to emerge in the Middle Ages with initially slow urban growth outside the eastern walls, which later accelerated, especially in the 19th century, to absorb pre-existing settlements. The first known written record of the East End as a distinct entity, as opposed to its component parts, comes from John Strype's 1720 ''Survey of London'', which describes London as consisting of four parts: the City of London, Westminster, So ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Branch (TV Series)
''Special Branch'' is a British television series made by Thames Television for ITV and shown between 1969 and 1974. A police drama series, the action was centred on members of the Special Branch anti-espionage and anti-terrorist department of the London Metropolitan Police. Production The first two series were shot mainly in a studio on videotape with filmed location inserts; a standard method of the time but one which suffered from jarring differences in picture quality between interior and exterior scenes. The location scenes of some episodes were shot on outside broadcast cameras, leading to smoother transitions between location and studio work for those episodes. Series 1 and 2 starred Derren Nesbitt as Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Jordan, working to Detective Superintendent Eden (Wensley Pithey) and subsequently Det. Supt. Inman (Fulton Mackay). The episodes featuring Eden (the first nine of Series 1) were recorded in black and white, while all subsequent episodes wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Target (UK TV Series)
''Target'' was a British police action drama series, which ran from 1977 to 1978, on BBC1. Set in Southampton, it starred Patrick Mower as Det. Supt. Steve Hackett, Brendan Price as Det. Sgt. Frank Bonney, Vivien Heilbron as Det. Sgt. Louise Colbert and Philip Madoc as Det. Chief Supt. Tate. Seventeen fifty-minute episodes were produced and the theme music was by Dudley Simpson. It was the BBC's response to ITV's successful series ''The Sweeney'', but received criticism for its levels of violence and lasted for just two seasons. Background ''Target'' was set in Southampton and involved the 13th Regional Crime Squad. The series was originally developed under the title ''Hackett'' by former ''Z-Cars'' script editor Graham Williams, but he was asked to swap roles with the outgoing producer of ''Doctor Who'', Philip Hinchcliffe. Hinchcliffe retitled the show ''Target''. He also persuaded the BBC to make the series entirely on film instead of the usual BBC production method at the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sweeney
''The Sweeney'' is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London. It stars John Thaw as Detective Inspector Jack Regan and Dennis Waterman as his partner, Detective Sergeant George Carter. It was produced by the Thames Television subsidiary Euston Films for broadcast on the ITV network in the UK between 2 January 1975 and 28 December 1978. The programme's title comes from the real-world Cockney rhyming slang nickname "Sweeney Todd" used to refer to the Flying Squad by London's criminal fraternity in the mid 20th Century. The popularity of the series in the UK led to two feature films, '' Sweeney!'' (1977) and ''Sweeney 2'' (1978), both starring Thaw and Waterman, and a later film, '' The Sweeney'' (2012), starring Ray Winstone as Regan and Ben Drew as Carter. Background ''The Sweeney'' was developed from a one-off TV drama entitled ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Performance (film)
''Performance'' is a 1970 British crime drama film directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, written by Cammell and photographed by Roeg. The film stars James Fox as a violent and ambitious London gangster who, after killing an old friend, goes into hiding at the home of a reclusive rock star (Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones). The film was produced in 1968 but not released until 1970, as Warner Bros. was reluctant to distribute the film, owing to its sexual content and graphic violence. It initially received a mixed critical response, but since then its reputation has grown in stature; it is now regarded as one of the most influential and innovative films of the 1970s, as well as one of the greatest films in the history of British cinema. In 1999, ''Performance'' was voted the 48th greatest British film of the 20th century by the British Film Institute; in 2008 ''Empire'' magazine ranked the film 182nd on its list of the 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. Plot Chas is a mem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Clockwork Orange (film)
''A Clockwork Orange'' is a 1971 dystopian crime film adapted, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. It employs disturbing, violent images to comment on psychiatry, juvenile delinquency, youth gangs, and other social, political, and economic subjects in a dystopian near-future Britain. Alex (Malcolm McDowell), the central character, is a charismatic, antisocial delinquent whose interests include classical music (especially Beethoven), committing rape, theft, and ultra-violence. He leads a small gang of thugs, Pete (Michael Tarn), Georgie ( James Marcus), and Dim (Warren Clarke), whom he calls his ''droogs'' (from the Russian word друг, which is "friend", "buddy"). The film chronicles the horrific crime spree of his gang, his capture, and attempted rehabilitation via an experimental psychological conditioning technique (the "Ludovico Technique") promoted by the Minister of the Interior ( Anthony Sharp). Alex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Get Carter
''Get Carter'' is a 1971 British crime film written and directed by Mike Hodges in his directorial debut and starring Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, John Osborne, Britt Ekland and Bryan Mosley. Based on Ted Lewis's 1970 novel ''Jack's Return Home'', the film follows the eponymous Jack Carter (Caine), a London gangster who returns to his hometown in North East England to learn about his brother's supposedly accidental death. Suspecting foul play, and with vengeance on his mind, he investigates and interrogates, regaining a feel for the city and its hardened-criminal element. Producer Michael Klinger optioned Lewis's novel shortly after its publication and made a deal with the ailing Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to finance and release the film, making ''Get Carter'' the last project to be approved by the studio's Borehamwood division before its closure. The production went from novel to finished film in eight months, with principal photography taking place from July to September 1970 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gangster Film
A gangster film or gangster movie is a film belonging to a genre that focuses on gangs and organized crime. It is a subgenre of crime film, that may involve large criminal organizations, or small gangs formed to perform a certain illegal act. The genre is differentiated from Westerns and the gangs of that genre. Overview The American Film Institute defines the genre as "centered on organized crime or maverick criminals in a twentieth century setting". The institute named it one of the 10 "classic genres" in its 10 Top 10 list, released in 2008. The list recognizes 3 films from 1931 & 1932 ('' Scarface'', ''The Public Enemy'' & '' Little Caesar''). Only 1 film made the list from 1933 to 1966, (''White Heat'' (1949)). This was at least partly due to the limitations on the genre imposed by the Hays Code, which was finally abandoned in favor of the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system in 1968. The genre was revitalized in the New Hollywood movement that followed. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
