EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema by Paul Moody

Author:Paul Moody
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9783319948034
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

This hysterical response from Trevelyan shows that despite his regular portrayal as a liberal, he was prone to moments of moral panic, and he maintained this position after his first view of the script, stating ‘here we again have violence leading to homosexual caresses. I dislike this very much, and, as I said before, I hope you can keep the homosexuality right out.’35 But for once, the censor’s objections did not affect the final film, perhaps in part because it was released just as Trevelyan’s tenure was coming to an end. Dakin’s homosexuality remained, and the film entered production as intended on 14 September, 1970.36 Villain was shot entirely on location, partly due to it being cheaper to film this way than to build studio sets,37 but also due to the various problems that were being experienced at Elstree during the production, and it lends the film an immediate, gritty feel that has seen it placed with similar films like Carter, and the television programme The Sweeney, as representative of the end of the 1960s and swinging London38—a theme which fits into dominant portrayals of the 1970s as the ‘hangover’ from the 1960s. While most reviewers note the similarities between Dakin and the Kray twins,39 it is notable that Lettieri was related via his brother-in-law to 1960s Genovese crime boss Thomas Eboli, and it is tempting to suggest that there are elements of Eboli in the depiction as well. Regardless, as played by Burton, he is a menacing, yet incredibly vulnerable character, certainly one of the most complex personas of British crime cinema. As Alexander Walker would put it

In Villain he looks, simply, godawful. His face is like an old glove that does not quite fit and has had to be pinched in here and there. His eyes are pebbles. The voice that had too often sounded self-enraptured in roles where, admittedly, listening to himself was the only compensation, is now hard and cheapened. And the immense dramatic ‘weight’ he carries, to the point of seeming overweight in commonplace films, is this time a bonus, not a burden. It reinforces his epic contempt for the tawdry ordinariness of the world that Vic Dakin seeks to dominate.40

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