A stage musical adaptation received its world premiere in 2019. In the same year a Criterion Collection DVD/Blu-ray was released in September.[5]
Plot
"Mac" MacIntyre is a typical 1980s hot-shot executive working for Knox Oil and Gas in Houston, Texas. The company's eccentric head, Felix Happer, sends him (largely because his surname sounds Scottish) to acquire Ferness, a village in the Scottish Highlands, to make way for a refinery. Mac (who is actually of Hungarian extraction) is a little apprehensive about his assignment, complaining to a co-worker that he would rather handle business over the phone and via telex. Happer, an avid amateur astronomer, tells Mac to watch the sky and to notify him immediately if he sees anything unusual.
Upon arriving in Scotland, Mac teams up with local Knox representative Danny Oldsen. During a visit to a Knox research facility in Aberdeen, Dr Geddes and his assistant Watt inform them about the scope of the company's plans, which entail replacing Ferness with the refinery. They also meet (and admire) marine researcher Marina.
Mac ultimately spends several weeks in Ferness, gradually adapting to the slower-paced life and getting to know the eccentric residents, most notably hotel owner and accountant Gordon Urquhart, and his wife Stella. As time passes, Mac becomes more and more conflicted as he presses to close the deal that will end the village he has come to love. The villagers are tired of their hard life and are more than eager to sell, though they feign indifference to induce a larger offer. Mac receives encouragement from an unlikely source: Victor, a capitalistic Soviet fishing boat captain who periodically visits his friends in Ferness (and checks on his investment portfolio, managed by Gordon).
Meanwhile, Danny befriends Marina, who is under the impression that the company is planning to build a research centre at Ferness. During a date, he discovers that Marina, who seems more at home in the water than on land, has webbed toes. While watching some grey seals, Danny mentions that sailors used to believe they were mermaids. Marina tells him the sailors were wrong.
As the deal nears completion, Gordon discovers that Ben Knox, an old beachcomber who lives in a driftwood shack on the shore, owns the beach through a grant from the Lord of the Isles to his ancestor. MacIntyre tries everything to entice Ben to sell, even offering enough money to buy any other beach in the world, but the owner is content with what he has. Ben picks up some sand and offers to sell for the same number of pound notes as he has grains of sand in his hand. A suspicious MacIntyre declines, only to be told there could not have been more than ten thousand grains.
Happer finally arrives on site, just in time to unknowingly forestall a potential confrontation between some of the villagers and Ben. When Mac informs him of the snag in the proceedings, he decides to negotiate personally with Ben and, in the process, discovers a kindred spirit. Happer opts to locate the refinery offshore and set up an astronomical observatory instead. He sends MacIntyre home to implement the changes. Danny brings up Marina's dream of an oceanographic research facility and suggests combining the two into the "Happer Institute", an idea that Happer likes. A sombre MacIntyre returns to his apartment in Houston. He pulls from his pocket pebbles and shells and spreads them out on the work surface. The local phone box in Ferness starts ringing.
When producer David Puttnam approached his regular backers Warner Bros. and Goldcrest Films to fund Local Hero, they initially turned him down. When Puttnam won a BAFTA for Chariots of Fire in 1982 this convinced Goldcrest executives to finance the entire film. Warner Bros. agreed to pay $1.5 million for US rights.[3]
Casting
Puttnam always wanted Burt Lancaster to play Happer but the casting proved problematic because the Hollywood star wanted his $2 million salary, which was almost a third of the film's entire budget. However, upon learning of Lancaster's potential involvement in the project, Warner Bros. offered Puttnam a US distribution deal and provided the additional funding to secure Lancaster. After negotiations, Puttnam ended up having an additional $200,000 in the film's budget. He later remarked in an interview that "big stars are not a liability, they are an asset!".
Local Hero was filmed in several locations around Scotland. Most of the Ferness village scenes were filmed in Pennan on the Aberdeenshire coast, and most of the beach scenes at Morar and Arisaig on the west coast.[6][7]
Camusdarach Sands, Camusdarach, Morar, Mallaig, Highland (Ferness, beach scenes, including external scene of Ferness church, using a mock-up of Our Lady of the Braes church – see below – specially constructed beside the beach)[7]
The film's soundtrack was written and produced by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. This has led to the popularity of the film with fans of the band. Knopfler has since performed an arrangement of "Going Home (Theme of the Local Hero)" as an encore at many of his concerts.[8] This tune borrows some melodic riffs from traditional songs. In his review of the album for AllMusic, William Ruhlmann wrote:
Dire Straits leader Mark Knopfler's intricate, introspective fingerpicked guitar stylings make a perfect musical complement to the wistful tone of Bill Forsyth's comedy film, Local Hero ... The low-key music picks up traces of Scottish music, but most of it just sounds like Dire Straits doing instrumentals, especially the recurring theme, one of Knopfler's more memorable melodies.[9]
Gerry Rafferty provided the vocals for "The Way It Always Starts" on the soundtrack. The album was certified a BPI silver record.[9]
Critical response
In his Chicago Sun-Times review, Roger Ebert gave the film his highest four stars, calling it "a small film to treasure". He gave particular praise to writer-director Bill Forsyth for his abilities as a storyteller.
What makes this material really work is the low-key approach of the writer-director, Bill Forsyth, who also made the charming Gregory's Girl and has the patience to let his characters gradually reveal themselves to the camera. He never hurries, and as a result, Local Hero never drags: Nothing is more absorbing than human personalities, developed with love and humor. Some of the payoffs in this film are sly and subtle, and others generate big laughs. Forsyth's big scenes are his little ones, including a heartfelt, whisky-soaked talk between the American and the innkeeper, and a scene where the visitors walk on the beach and talk about the meaning of life. By the time Burt Lancaster reappears at the end of the film, to personally handle the negotiations with old Ben, Local Hero could hardly have anything but a happy ending.[13]
James Berardinelli gave the film three and a half stars out of four, calling it "a fragment of cinematic whimsy—a genial dramatic comedy that defies both our expectations and those of the characters". Berardinelli also focused on Forsyth's abilities as a storyteller, noting that the director "finds the perfect tone for this not-quite-a-fairy-tale set in a quaint seaside Scottish village named Ferness. By injecting a little (but not too much) magical realism into the mix, Forsyth leavens his pro-environmental message to the point that those not looking for it might not be conscious of its presence." Berardinelli concluded that Local Hero represents "the best kind of light fare: a motion picture that offers a helping of substance to go along with an otherwise frothy and undemanding main course".[14]
The New York Times critic Janet Maslin wrote, "Genuine fairy tales are rare; so is film-making that is thoroughly original in an unobtrusive way. Bill Forsyth's quirky disarming Local Hero is both." Maslin concluded:
Local Hero is a funny movie, but it's more apt to induce chuckles than knee-slapping. Like Gregory's Girl, it demonstrates Mr. Forsyth's uncanny ability for making an audience sense that something magical is going on, even if that something isn't easily explained.[15]
In Variety magazine, film critic Todd McCarthy wrote, "After making the grade internationally with the sleeper hit, Gregory's Girl, Scottish writer-director Bill Forsyth has broken the sophomore sesh jinx the only way he could, by making an even better film ... Given a larger canvas, director Forsyth has in no way attempted to overreach himself or the material, keeping things modest and intimate throughout, but displaying a very acute sense of comic insight."[16]
Almar Haflidason called Local Hero "a wry film that slowly slips under the skin to surprising effect" in BBC Home. Haflidason concludes, "Once over, the mood of the film hits home and a longing develops to visit once again the characters of this warm and deceptively slight comedy."[17]
For Movie Gazette, Gary Panton described the film as a "magical, intelligent comedy". Panton praised the cinematography as "little short of amazing" and that Local Hero was "Bill Forsyth's finest work of all, this is a perfect film."[18]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a rare 100% positive rating based on 40 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.80/10. The site's consensus reads: "A charmingly low-key character study brought to life by a tremendously talented cast, Local Hero is as humorous as it is heartwarming".[20] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 82 out of 100, based on reviews from 15 critics.[21]
Some Scottish critics were less enthusiastic about the film, pointing out that it repeated and reinforced long-established cinematic representations of Scotland and the Scots and perpetuated a comforting but misleading narrative about Scotland's relationship with international capitalism.[22][23][24] The Glasgow Women and Film Collective questioned what it saw as the film's male-oriented narrative about innocence and power and the marginal roles it accorded to women.[25]
Box office
Local Hero earned $5,895,761 in total gross sales in the United States.[4] It earned distributors gross of £487,437 in the UK.[26]
Goldcrest Films invested £2,551,000 in the film and received £3,290,000, earning them a profit of £739,000.[27]
Alexander Runciman was a Scottish painter of historical and mythological subjects. He was the elder brother of John Runciman, also a painter.
Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell, a Scottish writer. He was best known for A Scots Quair, a trilogy set in the north-east of Scotland in the early 20th century, of which all three parts have been serialised on BBC television.
George Campbell Hay (1915–1984) was a Scottish Symbolist poet and translator, who wrote in Scottish Gaelic, Scots and English. He used the patronymic Deòrsa Mac Iain Dheòrsa. He also wrote poetry in French, Italian and Norwegian, and translated poetry from many languages into Gaelic.
The 'Maggie' is a 1954 British comedy film produced by Ealing Studios. Directed by Alexander Mackendrick and written by William Rose, it is a story of a clash of cultures between a hard-driving American businessman and a wily Scottish Clyde puffer captain.
Stephen Maxwell was a Scottish nationalist politician and intellectual and, from the 1980s, a leading figure in the Scottish voluntary sector.
William David Forsyth. known as Bill Forsyth, is a Scottish film director and writer known for his films Gregory's Girl (1981), Local Hero (1983) and Comfort and Joy (1984) as well as his adaptation of the Marilynne Robinson novel Housekeeping (1987).
Iain Crichton Smith, was a Scottish poet and novelist, who wrote in both English and Gaelic. He was born in Glasgow, but moved to the Isle of Lewis at the age of two, where he and his two brothers were brought up by their widowed mother in the small crofting town of Bayble, which also produced Derick Thomson. Educated at the University of Aberdeen, Crichton Smith took a degree in English, and after completing his national service in the Army Educational Corps, went on to become a teacher. He taught in Clydebank, Dumbarton and Oban from 1952, retiring to become a full-time writer in 1977, although he already had many novels and poems published.
Local Hero is the debut soundtrack album by British singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Knopfler, released in April 1983 by Vertigo Records internationally and by Warner Bros. Records in the United States. It contains music composed for the 1983 film Local Hero, produced by David Puttnam and both written and directed by Bill Forsyth.
HM Prison Barlinnie is the largest prison in Scotland. It is operated by the Scottish Prison Service and is located in the residential suburb of Riddrie, in the north east of Glasgow, Scotland. It is informally known locally as The Big Hoose, Bar and Bar-L. In 2018, plans for its closure were announced.
Alan Norman Bold (1943–1998) was a Scottish poet, biographer, journalist and saxophonist. He was born in Edinburgh.
Roddy McMillan OBE was a Scottish actor and playwright, possibly most famous for his comedy role as Para Handy for BBC Scotland's television series, The Vital Spark. He also played the lead role in Edward Boyd's private eye series, The View from Daniel Pike.
William Alexander Murray Grigor is a Scottish film-maker, writer, artist, exhibition curator and amateur architect who has served as director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. He has made over 50 films with a focus on arts and architecture.
William Campbell Rough Bryden was a Scottish stage and film director and screenwriter.
Professor Christopher Harvie is a Scottish historian and a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician. He was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Mid Scotland and Fife from 2007 to 2011. Before his election, he was Professor of British and Irish Studies at the University of Tübingen, Germany.
Cal is the second soundtrack album by British singer-songwriter and guitarist Mark Knopfler, released on 24 August 1984 by Vertigo Records. The album contains music composed for the 1984 film Cal, produced by David Puttnam and directed by Pat O'Connor. Puttnam also produced the film Local Hero (1983).
Scotland has produced many films, directors and actors.
The Celtic Media Festival, formerly known as the Celtic Film and Television Festival, aims to promote the languages and cultures of the Celtic nations in film, on television, radio and new media. The festival is an annual three-day celebration of broadcasting and film from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Isle of Man, Galicia, Cornwall and Brittany. The festival was founded in 1980.
Robert Cairns Craig is a Scottish literary scholar, specialising in Scottish and modernist literature. He has been Glucksman Professor of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen since 2005. Before that, he taught at the University of Edinburgh, serving as head of the English literature department from 1997 to 2003. He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2005.
Local Hero is a musical with music and lyrics by Mark Knopfler, and a book by Bill Forsyth and David Greig. The musical is based on the 1983 film of the same name, written by Bill Forsyth. It tells the story of an American oil company representative who is sent to the fictional village of Furness on the west coast of Scotland to purchase the town and surrounding property for his company. The musical made its world premiere at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh in March 2019.
↑ Craig, Cairns (1983), Visitors from the Stars: Scottish Film Culture, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 11, New Year 1983, pp. 6 - 11, ISSN0264-0856
↑ Caughie, John (1983), Support Whose Local Hero?, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 14, Autumn 1983, pp. 44 - 46, ISSN0264-0856
↑ McArthur, Colin (1983), The Maggie, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 12, Spring 1983, pp. 10 - 14, ISSN0264-0856
↑ Glasgow Women and Film Collective (1983), Bill and Ben: The Innocent Men?, in Hearn, Sheila G. (ed.), Cencrastus No. 14, Autumn 1983, pp. 42 -44, ISSN0264-0856
↑ Chapman, J. (2022). The Money Behind the Screen: A History of British Film Finance, 1945-1985. Edinburgh University Press, p. 314
↑ Eberts, Jake; Illott, Terry (1990). My indecision is final. Faber and Faber. p.657.
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