'The Krays' (1990): The real war. (CONTENT WARNING)

CONTENT WARNING: graphic description of amateur abortion and death.

"One day they'll drain Victoria Park lake. And you know what they'll find? What glorious remnants of the Second World War?"

Rose Wiltshire (Susan Fleetwood) gives a powerful, horrifying reminiscence of the war at home, when abortion was still illegal.

[cosmicstargazer]

This scene is permanently etched into my brain, as vividly as when seen the first time, for the last 34 years. Susan Fleetwood totally delivered, in a way I doubt many of her contemporaries could have. I often think about what life must have been like for women in WWII, like, how did those that bring life into the world contend with all that death? Facilitating it, too, by manufacture of all the parachutes, bullets, bombs, tanks, air-planes etc. how did that translate into post-war roles for women? We've come a long way, but still, at times, it feels like the Dark Ages. Misogyny of men is now ever-more met just as fiercely with misandry of women, frustratingly enough - if we only could all just remember, we are ALL human...

[myoung]

The Kemp lads and Billie Whitelaw (deservedly get the kudos on this perfect script) ... but this scene is darkly brilliant from Susan Fleetwood as Rose. It's heartbreaking ... as good as Tom Courtenay in 'The Dresser'. A perfect ten.

There's no acting here. xx

[micheleraba]

I have watched this movie thirty years ago. In Italian. Never forgot this scene. Immensely true

[Glasskey]

Terrific, devastating, gut-wrenching monologue, my personal favorite.

[leep]

This film - and this scene - made a huge impression on me when I watched it as a boy in the early 90s. The simmering rage of the film captivated me and shaped me in indeterminate ways. It's only in the last few years that I realise how misandrist it (explicitly) is and how much it contributed to issues I had accepting my own masculinity and the self-hate that came from it.

[artemiszeus]

Poor Rose. God rest her and poor Pauline.

[z-rex]

The misandry is astonishing. Love this film but I cringe at this scene every time.