Handgun (1983) Style A UK Quad Poster

After a long association with Ken Loach, which began with the ground-breaking Up the Junction (1965) and Cathy Come Home (1966) through Family Life (1971) and Kes (1969), producer and director Tony Garnett went on to make a couple of films - Prostitute (1980) and Handgun (1983) concerning people struggling on the fringes of society, before giving it up and producing Julian Temple's Earth Girls are Easy (1988).

Handgun is a mid-period revenge thriller, coming a couple of years after Abel Ferrara's Ms.45, and was made with Garnett's usual British drama style - several month's worth of rehearsal and improvisation. Although EMI financed it, they were unhappy with the finished result - his meticulous character study wasn't the slam-bang action piece they'd envisioned. Garnett subsequently sold the rights to Warners, but it appears they bought it only to stifle any competition for their Clint Eastwood rape-revenge thriller, Tightrope (1984). Warners buried it.

Aka: Deep in the Heart

Condition: VERY GOOD - Edge creases, 18 certificate with hand-drawn 'X' and 's added after 18 - cinemas still battling to make the new certification clear, even though it had been introduced in 1982.

Cast: Karen Young - Heat (1986), Jaws: The Revenge (1987), Daylight (1996), Clayton Day, Suzie Humphries, Ben Jones - Cooter in The Dukes of Hazzard (1979 - 1985)