10 Rillington Place

Happy Veteran's Day to all! And fittingly, we're reviewing a movie that has nothing to do with war or veterans at all.

Today's subject is 10 Rillington Place (1971). A chilling chronicle of a real-life serial killer, it's truly unsettling in showing how easily a seasoned killer gets an innocent man to take the fall for him. Superlative performances by Richard Attenborough and John Hurt make this film a must-see.

John Reginald Christie (Richard Attenborough) is an unassuming middle-aged man who, with his wife Ethel (Pat Heywood), manages an apartment building in post-war London. Beneath his quiet, obsequious manner lies a sadistic pervert who's made a habit of raping and murdering unsuspecting women. His newest tenants are Timothy Evans (John Hurt), an ambitious but thick-witted young man, and his pretty wife Beryl (Judy Geeson). When Beryl becomes pregnant, Christie, pretending to have medical skills, offers to perform an abortion. Christie not only kills Beryl, but successfully railroads the gormless Tim.

10 Rillington Place's "just the facts" portrayal of a horrible criminal and a hideous miscarriage of justice provides some discomforting food-for-thought. The case in question led to a backlash against the death penalty in Britain and ultimately its abolition - though not in time to prevent Christie from meeting his maker. Whatever your stance on the death penalty (this writer has no problem with it), the idea of an innocent man being mistakenly executed is extremely disquieting. And it's not just a philosophical issue, as Christie continues his crimes well after Evans's execution. Christie is, of course, ultimately caught, but the audience doesn't derive much satisfaction after what's come before.

10 Rillington Place, fortunately, lacks the anguished pleading of I Want to Live! or In Cold Blood: it doesn't present Christie as anything less than a monster, and allows its assorted horrors to speak for themselves. The film is less about a cruel and unfair justice system than a particularly loathsome monster who plays the system by being as unobtrusive as possible. Christie easily fools the half-witted, illiterate Evans, and through sheer banality slips through the detection of neighbors and the police. He isn't a pleasant fellow, but who would suspect the quiet bald man next door capable of anything more than being boring?

Journeyman Richard Fleischer (The Vikings, The Boston Strangler) provides fairly subdued direction. The film has a grungy kitchen-sink feeling perfectly suited for the destitution of 1949 London, and Clive Exton's economic script keeps things resolutely down-to-earth and believable. The story plays like many a Hitchcock film, but there's no last-second miracle where the bad guy is unmasked; real life isn't quite so tidy.

Richard Attenborough is shockingly cast against type. Attenborough made a career playing likeable chaps (The Sand Pebbles, Jurassic Park) and to see him as a sadistic, cold-blooded serial killer is jarring. Christie is neither a brutal killer nor a charming sociopath, but an incredibly clever monster hiding beneath a veneer of banality. This is probably Attenborough's best work in front of the camera, a subtle, chilling portrait of an all-too-believable monster.

John Hurt (A Man for All Seasons) is equally impressive, giving a wonderfully understated performance. Evans isn't particularly likeable, but it's impossible not to feel sympathy for him as he falls victim to Christie's scheming. Judy Geeson (The Eagle Has Landed) hasn't much to do, but Pat Heywood (Romeo and Juliet) shines as Christie's wife and sometimes-accomplice. Andre Morrell (Bridge on the River Kwai) has a tiny role as the judge prosecuting Evans.

10 Rillington Place is a superb film, and definitely among the best of its type. Without resorting to overwrought histrionics or sadistic violence, it simply and powerfully shows how a man can get away with horrible crimes.