10 Rillington Place
Directed by Richard Fleischer
Written by Clive Exton from a book by Ludovic Kennedy
1971/UK
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
John Reginald Christie: This stuff I use, 1 in 10 might die from it.
Timothy John Evans: Die!
John Reginald Christie: Well, that’s an acceptable medical risk.
Solid true-crime thriller is blessed by a couple of fine performances.
In the first five minutes of the movie we see John Christie (Richard Attenborough) administer kitchen gas to a young woman he is supposedly treating for bronchitis and follow up by starting a sexual assault on her. He buries her in the garden.
Christie lives in squalid quarters at 10 Rillington Place with his rather beaten down wife Ethel. Young Timothy (John Hurt) and Beryl Evans (Judy Geeson move in. They have a baby daughter, Geraldine. The couple is barely making ends meet. Timothy is illiterate. They fight constantly about Beryls spendthrift ways.
Christie claims to have some sort of medical knowledge derived from being in the war though he’s not inclined to give explanations or answer questions. He also brags of his service in the War Reserve Police. Christie is big on enforcing “rules” and soon puts himself in charge of the couple. They find that they are about to be in even worse financial straits because Beryl is now pregnant. But the devious Christie says he knows how to fix Beryl’s problem. I will stop there for those who don’t know the rest of the story.
I really enjoyed this better-than-average serial killer movie. The superb performances of Attenborough and Hurt make the movie special. Despite the subject matter, there is little to no gore or nudity.
