The Bitch, The Stud and The Prawn

December 30, 2011 6:51 PM

"...the ghost of George Walker, his family, and his business practices have continued to haunt Britain in all sorts of odd ways." Filmmaker Adam Curtis blogs about the Walker brothers (Billy and George) on the BBC website. A story of boxers, gangsters, the British film industry, Dodi Fayed, Guy Hands and... hardcore mutant prawn.

"Although Billy Walker was a good fighter - he never actually won a professional title. In reality he was an early modern celebrity - famous as much for who he was as for what he achieved."

posted by prolific (13 comments total)

That's... that's... that's probably the most astounding story I've ever heard.
posted by unSane at 7:54 PM on December 30, 2011

England is a small, strange country sometimes.
posted by Diablevert at 7:54 PM on December 30, 2011

England is a small, strange country sometimes.
posted by unSane at 7:56 PM on December 30, 2011

At least they had the honour to not actually screen those movies in public, unlike Uwe Boll.
posted by mek at 8:34 PM on December 30, 2011

"At least they had the honour to not actually screen those movies in public, unlike Uwe Boll."

Did you not follow the link in the article to clips from Crust on the director's website?

Because that film looks f'kin' awesome!
posted by Pinback at 9:57 PM on December 30, 2011

Sounds like a rip-off of the classic Monty Python sketch about The Piranha Brothers
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:25 PM on December 30, 2011

Sounds like a rip-off of the classic Monty Python sketch about The Piranha Brothers

the piranha brothers were modeled after a different set of violent gangster brothers - the Krays.
posted by facetious at 10:29 PM on December 30, 2011

The erudition of the comments on Curtis's blog makes Metafilter look like YouTube.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:30 AM on December 31, 2011

This is the kind of the story for which the phrase "truth is stranger than fiction" seems to have been coined.
posted by kcds at 6:33 AM on December 31, 2011

The part that I liked the best:

And the mutant prawn boxing movie, Crust, was finally shown - in Japan. It was a cult success and has subsequently spawned a whole new genre of films in Japan called "sea-life sport movies". The two most famous are "Calamari Wrestler" and "Crab Goal Keeper".

The whole time I was reading that (very interesting) story I was getting this weird deja vu like it was stylistically the same as Erroll Morris.

The bit about Dodi Fayed my college essay teacher would have struck through and wrote: "Delete or develop!" I skipped all of the videos.
posted by bukvich at 6:40 AM on December 31, 2011

Then in 1954 a group of Moroccan "businessmen" asked Billy (Hill) to restore the Sultan of Morocco to his throne.

Is there any more information about this online? I kind of like the idea of a (relatively) small-scale gangster being recruited to execute a coup d'etat, and a cursory Google reveals nothing.
posted by Toby Dammit X at 9:44 AM on December 31, 2011

Great post! And the first link is astonishing. I also want to know more about Billy Hill.
posted by CCBC at 2:22 PM on December 31, 2011

Been poking around for Billy Hill. Apparently the only source for the Morocco episode is his autobiography, King of the Underworld, out of print, I'm afraid.
posted by CCBC at 4:13 PM on December 31, 2011