10 Rillington Place (1971)

Director:

Richard Fleischer

Writers:

Ludovic Kennedy (book)
Clive Exton (writer)

Release Date:

5 March 1971 (West Germany)

Genre:

Biography | Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

The true story of John Christie - the serial killer.

Plot:

After subletting his upstairs London flat to a mentally deficient young man named Timothy Evans and his pregnant wife Beryl...

Plot Keywords:

1940s | Rape | Abortion | Hanging | Address As Title

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award.

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Richard Attenborough	...	John Reginald Christie
Judy Geeson	...	Beryl Evans
John Hurt	...	Timothy John Evans
Pat Heywood	...	Mrs. Ethel Christie
Isobel Black	...	Alice
Miss Riley	...	Baby Geraldine
Phyllis MacMahon	...	Muriel Eady
Ray Barron	...	Workman Willis
Douglas Blackwell	...	Workman Jones
Gabrielle Daye	...	Mrs. Lynch
Jimmy Gardner	...	Mr. Lynch
Edward Evans	...	Det. Inspector
Tenniel Evans	...	Detective Sergeant
David Jackson	...	Constable
George Lee	...	Constable

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:15 (video rating) | Canada:18+ (Ontario) | Iceland:16 | Finland:K-16 (1988) | Finland:K-18 (1971) | West Germany:18 | Norway:15 | Norway:16 (original rating) | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:X (original rating) | USA:GP (original rating) | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

6 Rillington Place, Notting Hill, London, England, UK

Company:

Filmways Pictures

Trivia:

According to the commentary by John Hurt on the DVD, 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 Albert 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.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: At the end of the film where Christie is arrested, the police constable leads him away from Putney Bridge (seen in the background). Putney police station is, in fact in the opposite direction in the Upper Richmond Road. The direction the constable takes Christie in the film would only lead down the river towpath towards Hammersmith.

Quotes:

John Reginald Christie: You go to the police and I'll have to deny I had anything to do with it.
Timothy John Evans: They'll know, they'll know from the operation you did.
John Reginald Christie: There are no visible signs, not the way I did it.
Timothy John Evans: Alright then, I'll tell them, then they'll know.
John Reginald Christie: Who do you think they'll believe? Everyone knows those stories you come out with about your father being an Italian Count and everything.
Timothy John Evans: It's just storifying.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Psychoville: (#1.5)" (2009)

I Saw This Thirty-three Years Ago

I saw this in a theatre here in the United States in 1971, when I was eleven years old. I'd seen Richard Attenborough as the circus master in DOCTOR DOLITTLE and I wonder if I'd sold my mother on taking me to this one because I knew the name Richard Attenborough. In any case, this movie burned itself into my brain immediately and, for the next three decades I told many of my fellow American film-buffs that there was this British movie no American had ever heard about that was more blood-curdling than PSYCHO. I suspect the obviously limited release of this movie in the United States had something to do with the fact that one of its chief selling-points was that it was based on a murder not well-known to Americans. The Christie murders were famous in Britain, and, in fact, historic because of their effect on the elimination of the UK's death penalty. But the distributors in America had to market this on its qualities as a thriller. Attenborough had yet to make his name a household word here, GHANDI being about ten years in the future and the probable difficulty with accents couldn't have made people who did see it very eager to recommend it. On top of this, the movie is not a thriller but a truly disturbing exploration of evil. It makes the roughly contemporary FRENZY look like a sitcom. Movies became more realistic in the late sixties and early seventies than they have been before or since. 10 RILLINGTON PLACE may be the most realistic movie about a serial killer ever made. It may not be the scariest, but it's the most memorable. I haven't forgotten it, and I haven't seen it in more than a generation. It is a mournful movie for serious viewing.