Local Hero at 40: Why we’re all still mad about Bill Forsyth’s endearing Eighties classic

As the Scottish comedy, starring Burt Lancaster as a Texan oil tycoon buying up a Scottish village, is re-released this week to mark its 40th anniversary, Geoffrey Macnab talks to the film’s co-star Denis Lawson and those who helped make it happen to discover its lasting appeal

Burt Lancaster as Texan tycoon Felix Happer in ‘Local Hero’ (1983) (Images courtesy of Park Circus/Goldcrest Films)

At the end of production on Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero – re-released this week to mark its 40th anniversary – there was a wrap party in a local hotel in the north of Scotland. The cast and crew chipped in together to get the film’s star, the Hollywood legend Burt Lancaster, his very own full-dress Highland costume, in the Knox tartan. Lancaster, who loved all things Scottish, reacted with delight. “He dropped his pants!” his co-star Denis Lawson tells me with mock horror.

The film’s associate producer, Iain Smith, who later executive produced Mad Max: Fury Road, adds: “He charmingly put it [the kilt] on there and then, revealing his fine physique.” Lancaster was around 70 at the time but was a former acrobat and still very buff. “He looked very well in it as I remember,” recalls Smith.

Lancaster’s mini striptease is the kind of incident that could easily have been included in the film itself. One reason audiences still cherish Local Hero, and why Top Gun mogul Jerry Bruckheimer numbers it among his favourite movies, is that it is full of whimsical and endearing moments like this.