movies (subject to tumblr's inconsistent search engine. for more complete results, try the archive): badlands, blow out, bring me the head of alfredo garcia, cadavres exquis, charley varrick, chinatown, dog day afternoon, il conformista, klute, le cercle rouge, marathon man, mean streets, night moves, point blank, prime cut, save the tiger, serpico, sisters, straight time, the day of the jackal, the don is dead, the driver, the friends of eddie coyle, the getaway, the harder they come, the hot rock, the killing of a chinese bookie, the last of sheila, the long goodbye, the mackintosh man, the onion field, the organization, the parallax view, the spook who sat by the door, the sting, the taking of pelham one two three, the yakuza, three days of the condor, villain, wanda
Villain (1971)
As a gangster heist film, Villain is completely unremarkable. Richard Burton halfheartedly plays villain Vic Dakin, a character loosely modeled on real-life criminal Ronnie Kray. Kray’s love life, and by extension Dakin’s, is the only aspect worth further thought. Dakin is gay, something not often scene in tough-guy crime films—either now or in the ’70s. The love scenes between Dakin and boyfriend Wolfe Lissner (Ian McShane) were cut after the failure of Staircase, in which Burton also played a gay man. But not entirely, enough footage of the men’s affair was left in so that all but the most oblivious viewers would pick up on the fact that Dakin liked to beat his boyfriend before sex. Like the movie’s title implies, Vic Dakin is not a good guy.
