(John Mackenzie,1980/Neil Jordan, 1986; Arrow DVD/Blu-ray, and 18)Bob Hoskins became an actor by accident when he accompanied a friend to an audition at London’s leftwing Unity theatre in 1969,and achieved TV stardom as the doomed travelling salesman in Dennis Potter’s Pennies From Heaven. In 1980, he became an international star in Scottish director John Mackenzie’s The Long top-notch Friday, or his first major screen role,as the East End gangster Harold Shand who dreams of transforming his minor criminal empire into a valid enterprise by rejuvenating London’s decaying docklands and playing host to the 1988 Olympics. Hoskins’s Shand was compared favourably with Edward G Robinson’s seminal Little Caesar of 1931. Related: Bob Hoskins: a career in pictures Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com