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| 10 Rillington Place (1971) Starring Richard Attenborough, Judy Geeson |
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| London, 1949. John Christie is an unassuming, middle-aged man who, along with his wife Ethel, lives in the ground-floor flat at 10 Rillington Place. His demeanor masks the fact of being a serial killer. His modus operandi is to act as a person with a medical background, lure unsuspecting women to his apartment on the pretense of curing them of some ailment, knock them unconscious with carbon monoxide gas, gain his sexual release through contact with the unconscious body, then strangle the victim dead before disposing of the body somewhere in the house or outside area. His next intended target is Beryl Evans, a young woman who has just moved into the top flat in the house. Beryl's husband, Tim Evans, is an illiterate man who likes to put on airs. Already with an infant daughter named Geraldine, the Evanses learn they are going to have another baby, which they cannot afford to have, nor can they afford to abort the pregnancy. This problem, on top of the constant issue of lack of money in all aspects of their lives, places a strain on the marriage, of which all their neighbors are aware through the constant fighting they overhear. Christie will offer to perform the abortion for free. The difference with this intended murder is that Tim will be aware that his wife will have died, but Christie plans either to goad Tim into keeping silent since the abortion would have been illegal, an act to which Tim would have provided his consent, or pin the murder on Tim who would have motive. Will this change in modus operandi affect Christie's ability to kill Beryl, or kill her without detection? |
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Director: Richard Fleischer Writers: Clive Exton (screenplay), Ludovic Kennedy (book)
Stars: Richard Attenborough, Judy Geeson, John Hurt, Pat Heywood
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BAFTA Awards 1972
Nominated Best Supporting Actor: John Hurt |
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The picture was filmed at the real-life Rillington Place, at Nos. 7 (for interiors) and No. 10 (but only for exteriors). The street had previously changed its name to Ruston Close in 1954, the year after Christie's execution. Filming took place at No. 7 when the occupants of No. 10 refused to move out to allow filming to take place there. The street was later demolished at the end of 1970 and the area later redeveloped, completed in 1977 as Bartle Road and St Andrew's Square, it is now being totally unrecognizable to the way it looked at the time John Christie and the other characters in the film (and real life) were residents there. |
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According to John Hurt, real-life retired executioner Albert Pierrepoint was a technical advisor for the execution scene. This scene was the first British people had seen in a cinema of a British hanging, and as it was still covered under the government's Official Secrets Act, no details regarding the scene were available. This is where Pierrepoint came in, under an assumed name, and was able to re-create the harrowing scene to maximize the true terror of what it must have been like. |
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Richard Attenborough once said of playing John Christie in this film in an interview with "The Times" of London on 18th May 1970: "I do not like playing the part, but I accepted it at once without seeing the script. I have never felt so totally involved in any part as this. It is a most devastating statement on capital punishment". |
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| This was one of a handful of pictures directed by Richard Fleischer that dealt with the subject matter of real life murder cases. The others include Compulsion (1959), The Boston Strangler (1968) and The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955). |
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| Throughout the 60's, film-makers tried to set up this production, but the Christie case was still considered too disturbing for British audiences. |
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The film was adapted by Clive Exton from the book Ten Rillington Place by Ludovic Kennedy. The film relies on the same argument advanced by Kennedy that Evans was innocent of the murders and was framed by Christie. That argument was accepted by the Crown and Evans was officially pardoned by Home Secretary Roy Jenkins in 1966. The case is one of the first major miscarriages of justice known to have occurred in the immediate postwar period. Most of the script, narrative and character development of it was drawn up in the 1960s. |
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Sir Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy (3 November 1919 – 18 October 2009) was a British journalist, broadcaster, humanist and author best known for re-examining cases such as the Lindbergh kidnapping and the murder convictions of Timothy Evans and Derek Bentley, and for his role in the abolition of the death penalty in the United Kingdom. |
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