Which gangster films do gangsters like?

Reggie Kray, Micky Fawcett, singer Lita Roza, Ronnie Kray, actress Barbara Windsor & actor Ronald Fraser in the 1960s

In a blog a couple of weeks ago, I was saying the word ‘gangster’ is a strange word but, if it has to be used, then Micky Fawcett, a close associate of the Kray Twins, probably counts as one.

A former one. He wrote the highly-admired memoir Krayzy Days.

I got talking to him about movies.

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JOHN: You told me that people in the business like The Godfather: Part II. That surprised me.

MICKY: Did it?

JOHN: It’s a lovely film, but I think about two-thirds of it is in Sicilian. I think Paramount considered putting it up for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film.

MICKY: Maybe that’s why people liked it. My favourite ones usually are the French ones – I’m watching one now on television – Spiral – this is the second series – it’s a subtitled French police thing.

JOHN: Oh, like those Scandinavian noir TV series.

MICKY: Not so much the Scandinavian ones; more the French.

JOHN: Why?

MICKY: Realistic. In the last one I saw, there were two policemen on a stake-out who have a fight with each other. You didn’t get that in Dixon of Dock Green. When I was growing up, everyone used to say: Oh! English gangster films! They’re useless! I remember them talking in The Kentucky Club with Joan Littlewood and one of her crew. You go down to get costumes for them films and you get a black shirt and a white tie… but nobody dresses like that! They were in the Kentucky surrounded by genuine gangsters.

JOHN: I think British gangster films got better after Get Carter. That and The Long Good Friday were good.

MICKY: They didn’t do much for me. There was Villain with Richard Burton…

JOHN: That was based on the Krays, wasn’t it?

MICKY: Richard Burton thought he was playing Ronnie Kray, yeah.

JOHN: Why was that good?

MICKY: I never said it was.

JOHN: It just felt to me like watching Richard Burton playing a part. I never really believed in it. I believed Donnie Brasco.

MICKY:  Yes, that was very good. But it was too good for the ordinary person.

JOHN: Why?

MICKY: Well, people like to see more shooting and violence and all that type of thing if they’re gonna watch a gangster film. But Donnie Brasco was very, very realistic. The scenes with Al Pacino in the house. A really, really good film.

JOHN: I don’t know if it’s true, but there was a distinction made in it that, if you introduced someone as “a friend of mine” he was a friend of yours but, if you introduced someone as “a friend of ours” he was a made man in the Cosa Nostra.

MICKY: That worked. It used to. They’re gone now: the Mafia. It’s the Russians now.

JOHN: I think maybe it helped it was made by an English director – Mike Newell, who did Four Weddings and a Funeral – he could see things objectively.

MICKY: Goodfellas I liked – That beginning and the cigarette as a currency.

JOHN: I don’t really like Martin Scorsese – in Mean Streets they really did just mutter.

MICKY: I thought that was a good film.

JOHN: The Departed was OK and I liked Casino. I think a lot of that is based on reality. The head-in-the-vice scene where the eye pops out.

MICKY: The line I remember in Casino is when the old-timers are talking and the boss says “Look, why take a chance?” So they shot him.

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(EXTRACT FROM THE CASINO SCRIPT)

The BOSSES are gathered around a conference table as the 

lawyers and nurses silently walk out the door as if on cue.

                      NICKY (V.O.)

          See, when something like this happens, 

          you know how things are gonna work out.

          It’s always better with no witnesses. 

          So, what about Andy?

THE CAMERA PANS FROM ONE BOSS TO THE OTHER.

                      FORLANO

               (Putting down his 

               oxygen mask once the 

               door behind him is 

               shut)

          He won’t talk. Stone is a good kid. 

          Stand-up guy, just like his old man. 

          That’s the way I see it.

                      BORELLI

          I agree. He’s solid. A fuckin’ Marine.

                      CAPELLI

               (Holding his oxygen mask) 

          He’s okay. He always was.

          Remo, what do you think?

                      GAGGI

               (Pause)

          Look… why take a chance? At least, 

          that’s the way I feel about it.

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JOHN: And I think that was based on a real incident too. Any British equivalent to that?

MICKY: No. No. The trouble is, for me… If you was a professional footballer, you wouldn’t really want to watch films about professional football too much, because you’d be criticising them all day long. When you’re surrounded by it, as I was for years…