In the hit 1990 film The Krays , the East End gangsters were portrayed as “identical twins who rose from poverty to power”, “from obscurity to fame” and “from the back streets to the attention of the world”. They were “special” boys, the film claimed, who loved their mother. But the producer now says he regrets glamorising them and is making another film that will portray the mobsters as they really were.
Ray Burdis said he wants to put the record straight: “They weren’t folk heroes. They were just a pair of cowardly psychopathic bullies, who terrorised the East End of London in the 1960s.” He said that films such as The Godfather , the Marlon Brando classic about the mafia, had made it fashionable to idolise gangsters.
The Krays , which starred brothers Gary and Martin Kemp in critically acclaimed performances, was a huge box-office success, taking more than £100m globally. Burdis said: “Because I’ve grown up with gangsters as a north London boy, I wasn’t intimidated at all by the Krays. I was intrigued.
I wanted to make a film that glamorised them at the time because that’s what you did in those days. “When it went out, I was happy as it was a big film. But, as I got older, I thought this was wrong.
I feel bad about certain aspects of the film. I thought it’s time for someone to speak out and tell the truth.” He added: “Although there were violent scenes, we steered away from that.
We went for the matriarchal side of it ...
mummy’s b.
