Bill Forsyth

Local Hero

Local Hero

Bill Forsyth put Scottish cinema on the map with this delightfully eccentric culture-clash comedy. Riffing on popular representations of Scottish life and folklore, Local Hero follows the Texas oil executive Mac (Peter Riegert), who is dispatched by his crackpot boss (Burt Lancaster) to a remote seaside village in Scotland with orders to buy out the town and develop the region for an oil refinery. But as business mixes with pleasure, Mac finds himself enchanted by both the picturesque community and its oddball denizens—and Texas starts to feel awfully far away. Packed with a near nonstop stream of droll one-liners and deadpan gags, this enchanting cult hit finds Forsyth surveying the idiosyncrasies of small-town life with the satirical verve of a latter-day Preston Sturges, arriving at a sly commentary on conservation, corporate greed, and the legacies we leave behind.

Film Info

  • United Kingdom
  • 1983
  • 111 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.78:1
  • English
  • Spine #994

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary from 2018 featuring director Bill Forsyth and film critic Mark Kermode
  • New conversation between Forsyth and film critic David Cairns
  • Shooting from the Heart, a 1985 documentary about the work of cinematographer Chris Menges
  • Episode of The South Bank Show from 1983 about the production of the film
  • The Making of “Local Hero,” a documentary made during the film’s production, featuring interviews with actors Peter Riegert and Burt Lancaster
  • I Thought Maybe I’d Get to Meet Alan Whicker, a 1983 interview with Forsyth
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar Jonathan Murray

New cover by Mark Thomas


Purchase Options

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 2K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • Audio commentary from 2018 featuring director Bill Forsyth and film critic Mark Kermode
  • New conversation between Forsyth and film critic David Cairns
  • Shooting from the Heart, a 1985 documentary about the work of cinematographer Chris Menges
  • Episode of The South Bank Show from 1983 about the production of the film
  • The Making of “Local Hero,” a documentary made during the film’s production, featuring interviews with actors Peter Riegert and Burt Lancaster
  • I Thought Maybe I’d Get to Meet Alan Whicker, a 1983 interview with Forsyth
  • Trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar Jonathan Murray

New cover by Mark Thomas


Local Hero
Cast
Burt Lancaster
Happer
Peter Riegert
Mac
Fulton Mackay
Ben
Denis Lawson
Urquhart
Peter Capaldi
Oldsen
Jenny Seagrove
Marina
Jennifer Black
Stella
John Gordon Sinclair
Ricky
Credits
Director
Bill Forsyth
Written by
Bill Forsyth
Produced by
David Puttnam
Music by
Mark Knopfler
Associate producer
Iain Smith
Director of photography
Chris Menges
Editor
Michael Bradsell
Production designer
Roger Murray-Leach

Current

Local Hero: Our Man in Ferness
Local Hero: Our Man in Ferness

Decades before climate change became a mainstream topic of conversation, Bill Forsyth’s beloved comedy asked fundamental questions about humankind’s willingness to conserve the natural world.

By Jonathan Murray

10 Things I Learned: Local Hero
10 Things I Learned: Local Hero

In the process of researching Bill Forsyth’s culture-clash comedy, producer Kate Elmore found out just how many ardent fans it has—including one legend of British cinema and one former U.S. vice president.

By Kate Elmore