Made as part of the BBC’s Play for Todays, Just a Boys Game (1979) marked the third and finest collaboration between director John Mackenzie and writer Peter McDougal. Prior to this they had worked together on the terrific Just Another Saturday (1975), controversial for its time due to being based around Glasgow’s “Orange Walk”.
They followed Just Another Saturday up with the more intimate, but no less important, The Elephant's Graveyard (1976), set in McDougal’s home town of Greenock. A two-hander between actors Jon Morrison and Billy Connoly, the Elephant's Graveyard is a beautifully written drama with a surprising twist in its tale.
As terrific as these two drama’s are, they both pale in comparison to the raw grittiness of Just a Boys Game, once again set in McDougal’s old stomping ground Greenock. Clocking in at a lean 71 minutes, the film focuses on one day in the life of local hardman Jake McQuillen, played with raw intensity by singer Frankie Miller.
Jake lives with his Grannie (Jean Taylor Smith) and Granda (Hector Nicol) who Jake looks up to as he was once known as the town's hardest man, a reputation Jake is trying to recreate for himself. Clearly there is no love lost between grandfather and grandson, but for some inexplicable reason Jake still looks up to him.
Jake is joined on his travels by his friend Dancer (Ken Hutchison), who has told his wife he is going out for bread but instead decides on a wild weekend of drunken debauchery, intending to talk Jake into joining him. Jake doesn’t take much persuasion and it’s not long until they are on the town, with Tanza (Gregor Fisher) later joining them on their travels.
Although, with a reputation like Jake’s, it’s not easy to have a simple night out, with many of the local hardmen out to make a name for themselves. What starts as a carefree night on the tiles quickly devolves into a night of violence.
Like Mackenzie and McDougal’s previous two collaborations for Play for Today, Just A Boys Game was greeted with great critical acclaim, with many commenting on the fantastic dialogue and exceptional acting from everyone involved.
Mackenzie’s realistic approach to the material was also noted upon, with him not shying away from the brutal violence of the material, all the more surprising considering this was made for television. While it isn’t in the league of something like Goodfellas (1990) in regards to its bloodletting, Mackenzie gets away with a lot considering the broadcast restrictions of the time.
Speaking of Goodfellas, none other than Martin Scorsese commented on the quality of Just a Boys Game when he saw it, exclaiming it the UK equivalent of his very own Mean Streets (1973), with him being particularly impressed with how Mackenzie handled the bar fight towards the beginning of the film.
Like Mean Streets, Just a Boys Game has a strong feel for its character, with the town they inhabit being very much a character in itself. With Mean Streets it was New York’s Little Italy, where with Just a Boys Game it's the Scottish town of Greenock.
Using real life locations and non-professional actors became something of a motif of Mackenzie’s work. This is fully evident in what is his most famous work, gangster classic The Long Good Friday (1980), although that film does feel somewhat glossy in comparison to his work here.
The success of The Long Good Friday gave Mackenzie the opportunity to work in Hollywood. Unfortunately this resulted in The Honorary Consul (1983), an extremely lacklustre adaptation of the Graham Greene novel of the same name.
With McDougall originally coming from Greenock, it is clear that a lot of Just a Boys Game is based on his own experiences and recollections. However, at the time of writing it was obvious that Greenock was a town in decline. I think I am safe in saying this, coming from Greenock myself, having furthered witnessed the collapse of much of the town’s industrial sites, with only a few remaining today.
McDougall worked in the shipyards in both Greenock and Glasgow which didn’t exactly brighten his outlook on his circumstances. Becoming more and more depressed by what he saw as bleak surroundings, McDougall decided to move to London, where he gained employment as a house painter.
While working as a house painter may not be seen as the best career move, this proved to be quite fortuitous in the development of McDougall’s career as a writer. During one of his painting jobs he met actor/screenwriter Colin Welland who was extremely impressed by the tales McDougall related to him regarding his time as a teenager where he took part in the Orange Walk. Welland encouraged McDougall to write these recollections down and turn them into a play, which later became Just Another Saturday.
However, Just Another Saturday didn’t go straight into production, with the BBC initially turning it down as part of their “Play for Today” series on the grounds that the subject matter was too inflammatory. Still, they clearly recognised the talent McDougall had as a writer and asked him to come up with another piece. This ultimately became Just Your Luck (1972), a smaller scale drama focusing on a young catholic girl who finds herself pregnant to a protestant boy.
Considering the BBC passed on Just Another Saturday due to the controversy that it would ensue, Just Your Luck didn’t fare much better, with numerous complaints in Scotland of how the characters were portrayed and how it didn’t shy away from showing the sectarian divide. What it did show was McDougall’s masterful grasp of dialogue and telling true to life stories.
This is fully evident in Just a Boys Game. Although the dialogue may be difficult to discern to a non Scottish viewer, which is mainly due to the accents and use of slang, I would still urge viewers to bear with it though, as it is totally fitting to the characters and settings.
Thankfully the BBC didn’t try to change the delivery of the dialogue, which would have lessened its impact. This is something that happened with Mackenzie and McDougall’s later collaboration A Sense of Freedom (1979), where it was thought to be a good idea to dub over the cast to make them easier to understand. While in essence this may be true, it diluted the impact of the film and robbed it of the realism that McDougall and Mackenzie had intended. Thankfully the original language version still exists, giving audiences the opportunity to view as it was intended.
It wouldn’t matter how good the dialogue was if the filmmakers didn’t assemble a quality cast to deliver it. There's not one poor performance in Just a Boys Game, with every cast member having an air of authenticity about them. The fact that this was Frankie Miller’s only acting role is astounding, with him being mesmerising as hardman Jake McQuillen. McDougall has commented since that Miller had a movie star quality about him, comparing him to the likes of Harvey Kietel, able to do with a look what many would need pages of dialogue to convey.
There’s a touch of the Western genre regarding Miller’s character. Much like Gregory Peck in The Gunfighter (1950), McQuillan doesn’t go looking for trouble but trouble always seems to find him, with every up and coming “hard man” wanting to make a name for themselves as the man to take him out.
Miller had worked with Mackenzie previously, composing the soundtrack for their Jimmy Boyle biopic A Sense of Freedom. Coincidentally, Miller is the cousin of the famed criminal turned artist, so it makes sense that he would be involved.
Although he was offered other acting roles, Miller decided to focus on his music. He would again collaborate with Mackenzie, writing and singing the opening and closing songs for the television movie Act of Vengeance (1986).
Sadly, Miller was struck down by a brain haemorrhage in 1994 which robbed him of the ability to speak or sing. Not to be undone, Miller went through a difficult rehabilitation. While he is still unable to sing, he has been able to write music for other artists such as Rod Stewart.
Matching Miller in the acting stakes is Ken Hutchison, who at that time would probably be best known for his role in the controversial Straw Dogs (1971). Hutchison gets the majority of the film’s best lines, with him using humour as a way of covering his predicament. Unlike Jake, Hutchison’s Dancer actually has responsibilities even if he is quick to neglect them for a day out with his pals.
Hutchison has a likeable quality about him, something that served him well in multiple roles. Even when playing out and out villains, he can come across as a loveable rogue. Saying that, nothing Hutchison does in Just a Boys Game is as deplorable as his actions in Straw Dogs, where his likeability quickly diminishes after the infamous rape scene.
One of the more surprising additions is Gregor Fisher, who many in the UK will know better as comic character Rab C Nesbitt. This was a good while before he would portray his most iconic role, so there wasn’t any expectations for him to be the funny man. He does have some hilarious dialogue here, but this is a more dramatic role from what he would play in the future.
There isn’t much in the way of female characters, with the few involved in the plot only having minutes of screen time. What each of them do have in common is how poorly they are treated, which is despicable. It could be viewed as something as a commentary on male misogyny, but sadly it is more of just a sign of the times when this behaviour was alarmingly the norm.
McDougall’s subsequent work wasn’t met with the same critical acclaim, but is still of an extremely high quality. Bleak drama Shoot for the Sun (1986) still had the razor sharp dialogue of his most famous work, delivered through pitch perfect performances by Brian Cox and Jimmy Nail. Focusing on the ever increasing Heroin problem of Edinburgh, it had Cox and Nail starring as a couple of low level drug dealers struggling to make a living.
This was followed by the well performed Down Where the Buffalo Go (1988), which unlike his previous work focused on someone not from Scotland. Here it's a US Marine played by Harvey Keitel who is stationed at the Holy Loch naval base. The main crux of the plot is the struggles in Kietel’s marriage, with his wife wanting to leave Scotland and move to America whereas Keitel wants to stay put.
The main difference between these two drama’s to Just a Boys Game is the absence of John Mackenzie, and the heightened docu-style he brought to proceedings. The same is true of McDougall’s later BBC play Down Among the Big Boys (1993), that while it re teamed him once again with Billy Connolly and was filled with McDougall’s sparkling dialogue, it was seriously hampered by its drab TV movie look.
After Down Among the Big Boys, the majority of McDougall’s writing was for the stage, with his only screenwriting credit scince was the unnecessary remake of the Ealing Studios Classic Whisky Galore (1949). Palling considerably compared to the original, what keeps director Gillies MacKinnon’s take on the material watchable is decent turns from a quality cast, headlined by Gregor Fisher which makes this something of a reunion for him and McDougall.
In regards to Mackenzie, as mentioned he tried his chances in Hollywood. He would make further Hollywood features after the Honorary Consul, but after the failure of that film he would return to the UK, directing the dramatic The Innocent (185) which gave Liam Nesson one of his earliest leading roles.
The Innocent was followed by the more exciting The Fourth Protocol (1987), which re-teamed him with his Honorary Consul leading man Michael Caine. As great as Caine is, the film is stolen by Pierce Brosnan’s chilly performance as Russian Agent Alekseyevich Petrofsky, who is willing to do whatever it takes to complete his mission. He’s very much like an evil James Bond which is apt considering he would finally get the chance to play the iconic spy years later.
Although these films are directed by a sure hand, they lack the realism and urgency Mackenzie brought to his earlier work. His later Hollywood movies are even further removed. Personally, I think both Last of the Finest (1990) and Ruby (1992) are underrated movies, but it can’t be denied that they share very little of the same style as the films Mackenzie made his name on.
However, he would eventually return to the mean streets of Scotland to direct the gripping Looking after Jo Jo (1998), a bleak BBC drama set in and around a run down council estate in 1980’s Edinburgh. Very much in the same vein as his work with McDougall, Looking after Jo Jo isn’t easy viewing but is extremely gripping, with lead actor Robert Carylyle igniting the screen in a multi-layered performance that perfectly conveys the damage drugs can do. Spanning 4 episodes, Looking After Jo Jo is a must see for any fans of Mackenzie’s early works or just quality drama in general.
There would be a few other projects for Mackenzie before his untimely death in 2011, but to be honest they pale in comparison to his more celebrated pieces of work and don’t exactly show him at his best.
Thankfully Just a Boys Game has been released on DVD. While the version released isn’t the best presentation the film could receive, the quality of the material still shines through. Hopefully in the future a distributor will see it in their heart to release the film on Blu Ray along with some of McDougall’s other works that have yet to see a physical release.
Rating: 5/5
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