Vic Dakin is a ruthless and sadistic London gangster. Dakin’s sadism toward his associates and rivals is contrasted by his care for his elderly mother, who seems unaware of his criminal activities.
Dakin is planning an ambitious robbery of a delivery of wages to a factory but as the robbery will take place on villain Frank Fletcher’s patch, he must reach agreement with him over it. They decide that Fletcher and his brother-in-law Edgar Lowis will accompany Dakin and his crew on the robbery.
Police detective Bob Matthews and his colleague Tom Binney are determined to put Dakin away and keep tabs on him through an informant, Danny, in Dakin’s circle of associates.
Minor underworld figure Wolfe supplies girls to an aristocrat who hosts sex parties at his mansion and deals in drugs. Wolfe is in debt to Dakin after losing money, and Dakin uses him for sex.
The robbery goes ahead but Fletcher is badly injured in the process. The gang split up and agree to meet later and divide the money. Matthews and Binney quickly arrest Lowis, whose fingerprints were found at the scene. On Dakin’s behalf, Wolfe sets up MP Draycott at one of the sex parties and uses compromising photos to pressure Draycott into giving Dakin an alibi for the robbery.
Dakin comes to suspect that Lowis has double crossed them and taken the money. Through Danny, Matthews feeds Dakin information that Lowis has been transferred to hospital on account of an ulcer. Dakin has his men abduct Lowis from hospital. Dakin threatens to kill Lowis unless he gives him the money. Lowis takes Dakin and the others to a disused building but cannot find the money. The police have followed them and when they move in, Dakin shoots Lowis dead. While the others make their escape, Dakin and Wolfe are left. Wolfe confesses that he took the money and has blown it. Dakin is arrested but defiantly tells Matthews that he will beat the charges through intimidation of the jury. The film closes with Dakin angrily shouting at onlookers.
The film was written by British comedy writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. They worked from a treatment by American actor Al Lettieri, renowned for his tough-guy image in films such as The Godfather (1972) and The Getaway (1972) as well as for his real-life associations with the New York Gambino Family.
Clement and La Frenais based their screenplay on Burden of Proof, a novel by James Barlow[5] that the Chicago Tribune had called a "sizzling, compelling book."[6] Coincidentally, Barlow mentions Richard Burton in his book in a scene in which Dakin's barrister asks a female witness if she likes Burton in an effort to sow doubt in the jury's mind about her identification evidence. Though several of the main characters and important situations carry over from the novel, Clement and La Frenais altered the plot considerably.
Casting
Burton wrote in his diaries that he was approached to make the film by Elliott Kastner, who had produced Where Eagles Dare (1968) with Burton:
It is a racy sadistic London piece about cops and robbers – the kind of 'bang bang – calling all cars' stuff that I've always wanted to do and never have. It could be more than that depending on the director. I play a cockney gangland leader who is very much a mother's boy and takes her to Southend and buys her whelks etc but in the Smoke am a ruthless fiend incarnate but homosexual as well. All ripe stuff.[7]
Burton normally earned $1,000,000 per film but agreed to make Villain for no salary in exchange for a larger percentage of the profits. "These are the times of economies for everyone making pictures," said Burton, "And actually working this way – if you can afford it and don't mind waiting for your money – is far more exciting for the actor. You feel more involved in everything rather than just like an old hired hand."[4]
Burton also said that the producers persuaded him to take the part through "... great American conmanship. One of the producers said to me – 'I bet if I offered you the part of a cockney gangster you'd turn it down, wouldn't you?'. And of course one's immediate response is to say – don't be daft of course I wouldn't – and the next thing you know you've got a script in your hand."[4] Burton admitted that he had always wanted to play a gangster, having long admired Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart: "I suppose like the fat man who would have loved to be a ballet dancer."[4] During filming, he said: "I usually play kings or princes or types like that ... I've never played a real villain... Interesting type. I'm not sure about this film. We'll see."[8]
In 2013, Ian McShane said that he had mixed feelings about playing Burton's bisexual lover. "After kissing me, he's going to beat the hell out of me and it's that kind of relationship – rather hostile. It was very S&M. It wasn't shown in the film. He said to me, 'I'm very glad you're doing this film.' I said, 'So am I Richard.' He said, 'You know why, don't you?' I said, 'Why?' He said, 'You remind me of Elizabeth.' I guess that made the kissing easier."[9]
British exhibitors voted Burton the most popular star at the box office in 1971, although Villain was not listed among the top ten most popular films.[11] On 30 May 1971, Burton wrote in his diary that Villain was "... a goodish film but so far isn't doing very well in the States but has not yet opened in Britain and the Commonwealth where it should do better."[12] On 21 August 1971, he wrote that the film's director was "whassisname" and that he:
Received a cable... from [executive] Nat Cohen saying the notices for [the film]... superb and great boxoffice, and another cable said we expect a million pounds from UK alone. That means about $1/2 m for me if I remember correctly. There is no accounting for differing tastes of Yanks and English critics. Villain was received badly in the US and with rapture in the UK. I know it is cockney and therefore difficult for Yanks to follow but one would have thought the critics to be of sufficiently wide education to take it in their stride. The English critics, after all, are not embarrassed when they see a film made in Brooklynese. Anyway I am so delighted that it is doing well in UK. Otherwise I would have doubted E's and my judgement in such matters. I thought it was good and she said she knew it was good. The American reaction was therefore a surprise.[13]
Critical reception
The film received generally unfavourable reviews, possibly because it was seen as a veiled portrait of the Kray twins, who had been jailed for life in March 1969.[14]
Monthly Film Bulletin said "After Performance and Get Carter, there appear to be few atrocities left unexplored in the British underworld. But where the latter’s determinedly ‘unsentimental’ approach resulted in an automaton hero and a story-line loose enough to accommodate a maximum number of picturesque deaths in striking locations, Villain’s superficial nastiness (largely a matter of louder and better synchronised punches) conceals a relatively old-fashioned approach to the genre. The story ... is tidily plotted; the locations are functional; the bad characters are human enough to elicit sympathy at their downfall; and the film whirrs smoothly into top gear for its last-ditch climax, complete with curtain line. ("Who are you looking at?"’ yells Burton to the audience as he is led away handcuffed.) ... The performances are uniformly good; the screenplay, by Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement, is witty and laconic; and Michael Tuchner’s direction is thoroughly efficient, with the robbery itself and the bungled getaway brilliantly staged."[15]
In Wales and Cinema: the First Hundred Years, Peter Waymark described it as a "disappointingly histrionic London gangster movie."[16]
In 2009, Empire named Villain #2 in a poll of the "20 Greatest Gangster Movies You've Never Seen* (*Probably)."[17]
.jpg)