5. Mad Cyril/Mad Frank Performance (1970)/Charlie (2004)
"We were eating eggs in Sammys when the black man drew his knife," drawls rock star Turner, played by Mick Jagger, as the cult classic Performance slips over the cusp from gangster movie to psychedelic psychodrama. "It was Mad Cyril!" contradicts gang boss Harry Flowers (Johnny Shannon) in a trip sequence, as his violent henchman goes crazy on magic mushrooms. Samples from the films soundtrack later provided the backing for 80s Madchester loons Happy Mondays track of the same title (Mad Cyril, naturally). But it was also an allusion to one of the London underworlds most infamously violent underlings, Mad Frankie Fraser - who died, aged 90, on 26 November 2014. Not the rotund lackey in Performance but an intense, big-headed, little guy with a short fuse, he was played by near-lookalike Chris Curran (not the late Irish actor) in Malcolm Needs ill-received 2004 gang flick Charlie, about the Richardson gang. As one face of the time said to me about the Richardson torture gang trial, "I think Frasers getting a bit of yardage out of it... I think hes enhanced it. Hes built a reputation around it. Wed never heard of it happenin. he probably pulled teeth out an all that, he conceded, of a time-honoured gangland tradition that persists to the present day. Charlie, the film, while no masterpiece, does reflect the ambiguity of criminals who strongly protest the charges against them yet build their status upon them - henchman Fraser in particular. In the years before his demise, well into his dotage, the old South London gangster was at it again, hinting that hed disposed of people and cremated their bodies for gangland boss Billy Hill. These latter crimes were most likely never committed by Fraser, or indeed by anyone at all.
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Charlie, the film, while no masterpiece, does reflect the ambiguity of criminals who strongly protest the charges against them yet build their status upon them - henchman Fraser in particular. In the years before his demise, well into his dotage, the old South London gangster was at it again, hinting that hed disposed of people and cremated their bodies for gangland boss Billy Hill. These latter crimes were most likely never committed by Fraser, or indeed by anyone at all.