Legend │ StudioCanal
Courtesy of StudioCanal
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
As Ridley Scott directed American Gangster, it seemed only fair that the Rhode Island-born Brian Helgeland should have a stab at the Kray Twins. But before I go on, I’d like to stress that the villains of British true crime are no real match for their American cousins. Jack the Ripper, for all his notoriety, is only known to have killed five people and the Kray Twins, who held London in the grip of fear, actually only killed one person each. I say “only” as the serial killers of American legend were so much more prodigious. Henry Lee Lucas, who was chronicled in John McNaughton’s chilling Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), confessed to over 600 murders, although this seems to have been logistically impossible. The Krays, though – the debonair, calculating, deceptive and charming Reggie Kay, and his twin brother Ronnie, described here as a “psychopathic paranoid schizophrenic” – were far more interesting.
Now Brian Helgeland’s Legend is released by Studio Canal as a 4K Ultra High-Definition Collector’s Edition complete with a bunch of special extras, and a 48-page booklet. It’s not the first movie about the Krays – Gary and Martin Kemp played them in a 1990 film – but it’s the first in which Reggie and Ronnie Kray have been played by the same actor, in this case Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy is one of the UK’s most talented movie stars and if you don’t believe that you should see him here, where he argues with himself, beats himself up and just swaggers around the East End of London with pure lip and chutzpah. Unlike Robert De Niro, who played two completely different gangsters in this year’s The Alto Knights, whom you couldn’t really tell apart as they both looked like Robert De Niro, Tom Hardy offers us a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde transformation, a sort of two sides of the same evil coin. Buried deep in the treasure trove of the wonderful extras on this Edition is an extensive, illuminating interview with the late, great and sorely missed cinematographer Dick Pope. He admitted that Tom Hardy was so convincing as the two Krays, that when they were setting up for a new shot, he got quite impatient and admitted saying, “well, why can’t we use Reggie now, while Ronnie is getting changed?”
The thing about the Krays was the trepidation that they engendered in 60s’ London, while hob-knobbing with David Bailey, Joan Collins, Sonny Liston, Shirley Bassey and Barbara Windsor. Yet, for the public, the East End had never felt safer – the Krays were in control. But if you were an enemy of the Twins, you were in trouble. They didn’t need Tommy guns – they ruled by personality. But I should warn prospective viewers that the film is extremely violent, just because you don’t know when Ronnie is about to lose it next. Anything that came to hand could be used as a weapon – although he favoured a razor and a claw hammer. In one famous brawl with a gang of rivals from the South of London, in The Pig & Whistle pub, the two brothers trounced the lot on their own, with Ronnie pretending he is armed and belittling an opponent for brandishing a rolling pin: “What are you, Fanny Craddock? What are you doing with that? Gonna bake me a cake? This is a fucking shoot-out!” Of course, it was all bluster, as actually killing a man was a step too far.
On one level, Legend is also something of a love story, as told through the voice-over of Emily Browning, who plays the real-life sweetheart of Reggie’s, Frances Shea, who looks like Jean Shrimpton. She is the necessary sweet touch in the saline solution, who says, “it took a lot of love for me to hate Reggie the way I do.” What hadn’t occurred to me, until watching the detailed, comprehensive interview with Brian Helgeland (who also wrote the brilliant screenplay), is that the director does like to work with Australian stars. L.A. Confidential, from the script that won him his first Oscar, starred Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce; then there was Conspiracy Theory and Payback, with Mel Gibson, A Knight’s Tale and The Order with Heath Ledger, and Robin Hood with Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. They’re his lucky mascots. And so when the Melbourne-born Emily Browning was mooted for playing Frances in Legend, she seemed like the natural choice – and she is wonderful in the part.
But it's Tom Hardy you will remember, as Reggie, the handsome charmer in the Saville Row suits, and as Ronnie, with his unprepossessing spectacles and broken nose and speech impediment. And there’s a superb supporting cast, too, including Christopher Eccleston, David Thewliss, Paul Bettany, Taron Egerton and Tara Fitzgerald, the last named as Frances’s waspish Mum. And the extras that come with it just keep on giving, including numerous interviews with cast members, a documentary with those who knew the Krays back in the day, who both feared and respected them, an interactive map of East London and an insightful commentary by Brian Helgeland.
STUDIOCANAL’s 10th Anniversary release of Legend is now available on Blu-ray
Read our interview with writer/director Brian Helgeland
STUDIOCANAL is Europe’s leader in production, distribution and international sales of feature films and series, operating in all nine major European markets - France, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Spain, Denmark and Benelux - as well as in Australia and New Zealand. It owns the largest library in Europe and one of the most prestigious film libraries in the world, boasting more than 8,000 titles from 60 countries, which span 100 years of film history. 20 million euros has been invested into the restoration of 750 classic films over the past 5 years. Known for releasing a stunning roster of incomparable vintage classics titles, StudioCanal’s releases include outstanding thrillers, heart-rending masterworks, horror favourites, war dramas, Ealing comedies, and plenty of lesser-known gems. The collection boasts some of the greatest and beloved stars of British cinema.
