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 boys, good boys, lovely boys. They fought for their mother – that [was] the premise of the film. The film is about the myth of the Krays. It wasn’t about the reality.”
The new film, which he is writing and directing, is titled Last Kings of London. It will be much darker, depicting swinging 1960s London, “where corruption plagued the police force and crime families ruled the streets”, he said.
Ronnie died in 1995, aged 61, having been jailed for the murder of fellow gangster George Cornell at the Blind Beggar pub in 1966. Reggie died in 2000, having gone to prison for the murder of another criminal, Jack “The Hat” McVitie.
Burdis got to know the real Krays well while visiting them in prison repeatedly when making the first film: “I went to meet Ronnie in Broadmoor and Reggie in various prisons. He was moved round.”
His company, Fugitive, paid them £100,000 for the film rights to their story: “But we never let them see a script. Never. They kept asking, ‘Could we see a script?’ and I said, ‘No’.
“That was a lot of money. But we thought we were on to a winner here because no one’s ever done it. They spent the money within minutes. It wasn’t long before we got a phone call saying, ‘Can we have some more?’ We said, ‘No, that ain’t the way it works.’”
But the Krays lived up to their thuggish imagein meeting him. He sensed that they could “grab you at any time” as there was no protective glass between them, as he had expected.
He described Reggie as “very aggressive”. “He threatened to have me killed. He punched the wall and said, ‘Do you realise I could have it put in my will to have you murdered?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s your prerogative.’ He was fuming.”
On another visit, on a wintry day, Burdis wore a padded jacket, rather than his usual suit: “I walked in and Reggie threw his cup. ‘You’re disrespecting me. Look how you’re dressed.’ I said, ‘because it’s freezing outside.’”
Ronnie told him that he hated the film: “You had my mum swearing in it and she never swore.”
“It was mind-boggling,” Burdis said. “It was just misguided, as if their mother had never sworn. And Ronnie said ‘You portrayed us being drunk in the film, we were never drunk’. Well, they were constantly drinking and taking pills… at the time.”
He would have made the new film, he said, even if the Krays were still alive: “But easier now. A lot of people were terrified of them and even members of their gang, perhaps now, will own up to the fact that ‘this is how we behaved and it weren’t right.’”
Asked how the Krays would have felt about the new film, he said: “I don’t think they’d be too happy. It really does show what they were. They didn’t care about kids. They didn’t care about women. They just wanted what they wanted. Ronnie used to send out some of his gang to pick up young boys, 14-year-olds, so he could have sex with them. It was very sadistic. They were psychopaths. Ronnie was schizophrenic as well. They were very dangerous.”
It was Leonard “Nipper” Read, a Scotland Yard detective, who brought the Krays to trial. The new film will tell the story from the perspective of the police and ordinary people, including the barmaid of the Blind Beggar pub, who witnessed the 1966 shooting. Burdis said: “The Krays terrorised her. She went through a terrible time with threats. It needs to be told.”
Robert Stushki, head of Ark Movie Productions, which is producing the film, said: “I used to think that the old 1960s mobsters were cool. It’s really weird to say that now. I was wrong about those people. Cinema has played a part in making those gangsters look cool. Now cinema can show the other side.”
