Jack's Return Home

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In truth, there are a lot of similarities, even down to certain lines of dialogue, but there are some differences too. A well-known face on British television in the 1960s, his sandblasted features and shifty, haunted looks made him ideal for playing villainous characters or hard-bitten detectives.

The film didn’t have the luxury of expounding upon the character’s inner workings as the author does on the page.

The production also utilised a large number of extras, most of whom were locals who just happened to be on scene when filming was happening.

A particular target of his attention is Eric Paice, an enemy from his youth, who now works for local crime lord Cyril Kinnear. In Michael Klinger's The Guardian obituary in 1989, Derek Malcolm remembered the film as "one of the most formidable British thrillers of its time". The town with no name became the fading industrial center of Newcastle (or Newcastle Upon Tyne, as it is now known). We don't get to see much of the course but we do see the finish of one race in front of the paddock and the start of another race. As usual, the wordy one will examine the text of a famed novel later adapted to film, which I will review.

Jack drives Margaret to the grounds of Kinnear's estate, kills her with a fatal injection, and leaves her body there. Suspecting foul play, and with vengeance on his mind, he investigates and interrogates, regaining a feel for the city and its hardened-criminal element. The blurbs at the beginning of the new versions represent a who’s who of muscular crime fiction: Dennis Lehane, David Peace, Derek Raymond, James Sallis, Stuart Neville, and John Williams. Where both the novel and the movie are united is in their warts-and-all portrayal of an unforgiving British gangland, setting their narratives against dingy working-class backdrops, and underscoring them with a level of sleaze that has shocking power even today.

Other notable characters include Frank’s mistress, Margaret, and his brother’s teenage daughter, Doreen. The music playing in the nightclub scene is an uptempo cover of the 1969 Willie Mitchell tune "30-60-90" performed live by the Jack Hawkins Showband, which was the resident band at the Oxford Galleries night club.A devout Roman Catholic, Mosley was concerned about taking part in such a violent film with depictions of criminal behaviour, and consulted his priest over the moral implications.

A first rate thriller, and I can’t really add much to the excellent points already made – an excellent analysis. While the finales for both of these 1971 films would be considered less than satisfying in any of the ten years which bracketed The Me Decade, each of those endings sure worked on-screen. A staple of ‘tough guy’ fiction these days, I suppose Jack was one of the very first who you could say ‘didn’t start fights, but certainly finished them’. A near fine book without inscriptions, in a very good+ unclipped wrapper with a little creasing and small loss to corners.

Cuckolding one of his bosses while scheming to steal as much of their money as possible is only the most obvious example of his depravity. Frank was a barman, after all, and he worked in a particularly rough part of a particularly rough town.