Publisher: CinemaSerf May 29, 2023
Richard Attenborough is superb in this creepy and true tale of John Christie. He lives with his wife Ethel (Pat Heywood) in the ground floor of the address where, above, a young couple of pregnant Beryl (Judy Gleeson) and Timothy Evans (John Hurt) have just moved in. Unbeknown to them, though, the outwardly affable Christie lives a double life. His other "career" is to help unfortunate women deal with ailments for which they cannot just go to their doctor. We assume that he gets his kicks whilst they are anaethetised and then they end up behind a false wall in his kitchen! It transpires that he might just be able to help the poverty stricken Evans's out - they cannot afford the child they already have, let along bring another into the world, and their rows are regularly heard by the entire street! Maybe Christie has a solution? Of course, by this stage we are fully aware of the real motives behind this proposed "generosity" and clearly it is all very perilous for Beryl, and quite possibly for her slightly flaky husband too. This story had a profound effect on the British public in 1949, when all this happened, and may well have hastened the abolition of the death penalty some 15 years later. The potent performances here make it very easy to see why. So often the victims were never reported missing, or if they were there was no connection to Christie as few of them ever told anyone else where they were going, or why! The truth only came to light after he had been evicted for unlawfully sub-letting their flat. It's a tough watch, this. Richard Fleischer doesn't offer us graphic imagery or audio, he allows our own well informed imagination to do most of the heavy lifting here, and that technique really works!