If you're not familiar with the infamous Kray twins, you'll be familiar with them after watching Legend, which opens in US theaters on November 20 (the British crime thriller premieres in the UK on September 9) Have some knowledge. Based on a true story, Legend follows Reginald "Reggie" Clay and his twin brother Ronald "Ronnie" Clay (both played by all-around hunk Tom Hardy )s story. The brothers were British gangsters who ran rampant in London in the 1950s and 1960s, and they dealt with the underworld as easily as they dealt with politicians and celebrities. The film chronicles their rise, but also their fall, which ultimately led to their imprisonment in 1969.
Reggie's wife, Frances Shea (Emily Browning), who committed suicide in 1967, narrates the film in her afterlife, so it's no surprise that Legend touches on some pretty heavy topics, like spirituality Disease and murder. The material stems from the lives of the Kray twins, as told in the book "Professions of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins" by John Pearson. But how much of the film accurately reflects the Krays' real-life crimes? Writing in The Guardian , Maureen Flanagan, a close friend of the family, commented on what she thought the film got right and where it fell short. Her overall opinion?
"I thought this movie was great... Tom Hardy is chilling in this movie. Everything about him as Reggie is spot on: the way he walks, his beautiful hands, the way he holds his cigarette, and just the general It's that curious frown, like he just has that, and then, on the other hand, when he plays Ron, he's so menacing and his eyes are absolutely spot-on, and I thought he gave a wonderful performance."
Flanagan went on to describe the film's accuracy in depicting the romance between Reggie and Frances (Reggie apparently did propose to her by climbing up a drain pipe to her bedroom window, as shown in the film). However, Flanagan said the scene in which Reggie beats Francis was not based on reality. According to Flanagan and others who knew Reggie, such an attack never happened in real life. According to Pearson, Frances herself insisted that Reggie was never physically violent towards her, The Guardian 's review of the film noted. The paper continues,
According to John Pearson, Reg's threats to Frances were psychological: He talked about killing her, her brother and her parents, and brandished a gun. He knew she was afraid of seeing blood, so he cut his hand while she was sleeping and dripped the blood on her.
Flanagan also described Violet (Jane Wood), the Kray family matriarch, as "the most important person in [the Krays'] lives." However, in the film, Flanagan said her character was "fired" and "only appeared in a few scenes." Additionally, Violet is shown abusing Frances in the film, but Flanagan claims she has only ever seen Violet show kindness toward Frances.
As for the overt portrayal of Ronnie's homosexuality in the film, Flanagan claimed that Ronnie actually had a small group of friends and family (called "The Company") to whom he informed his sexual orientation. "A lot of people who really thought there might be something there would never say anything to [Ronnie]," Flanagan said. "He would attack them so they wouldn't ask. Later, people he thought were 'company' found out." It was accepted. "
The Guardian review notes that the film sets up Ronnie as the paranoid schizophrenic and Reggie as the "rational" twin, but also notes that "Indeed, many consider Reggie the less powerful of the two. A terrible one, but these two were violent and unstable from the beginning." The film shows the murder that ultimately landed the two brothers in prison; Ronnie shot a man named George Connell at point-blank range. George Cornell's criminal, this is very true. The movie tries to give a motive for the murder, but in reality, the real reason is unclear. The film also depicts Reggie's murder of notorious criminal Jack McVitt as a stabbing that occurred at a party, but in reality McVitt's murder was a two-pronged effort, with McVitt being stopped by Ronnie who urged him to brother Reggie left. By stabbing.
Ultimately, as glamorous as the Krays' lives seem—spending time with famous celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland—and as legendary as the film's title suggests, the Krays 's reality is dark, twisted, and barely worthy of being labeled a legend.
Image: Universal Pictures (2); Studio Canal
