Just perfect...

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

American director Richard Fleischer could sometimes ham up his films but shows a sure footing here showing a shabby, dishevelled post war London in this film chronicling a notorious miscarriage of justice, one which took an important step in the abolition of capital punishment from the British statute books.Richard Attenborough is chilling as the softly spoken charlatan John Christie, who claimed to know it all and who enticed women to his home in the pretext of inducing an abortion but who used his gas set up to murder women and then it is hinted, committed sexual acts on their dead bodies before hiding the corpses.John Hurt plays the dim braggart Timothy Evans who moves in as a tenant in the house along with his wife and baby daughter. The Evans are a tempestuous couple and when Beryl Evans becomes pregnant she has no idea how she would cope as the family were financially unstable.Christie kills Beryl by coaxing her to abort the foetus and also kills the infant child. Timothy Evans who was illiterate as well as being not too bright was easily manipulated by Christie and easy pickings for the police. He was hanged in 1950 but when other corpses were later found in 10 Rillington Place, the criminal justice system realised their gross error.Attenborough's quiet creep is magnificent but a youthful John Hurt is also effective as the simpleton Hurt. Fleischer makes good use of location shooting showing a London where people disappeared all too easily during the blitz.

Based on the real-life case of the British serial killer John Christie (Richard Attenborough), and what happened to his neighbors Tim (John Hurt) and Beryl Evans (Judy Geeson).Although I went through a phase where I was reading far too much about serial killers, I do not recall ever reading much -- if anything -- on John Christie. And I wonder why, as he lead such an interesting life and the aftermath is just as interesting as the crimes themselves. I suspect this was because 1) the books tend to focus on American killers and 2) the killers spotlighted are generally from the 1960s-1980s, and Christie beat them to the punch.Anyway, great acting from everyone involved. Attenborough, who is now probably best known as the old man from "Jurassic Park", really managed to keep the creep factor high. There were moments of Hannibal Lecter in there... but again, before Lecter was ever dreamt of.

A very eerie thriller where Richard Attenborough gives the most sinister performance ever as a man, at first masquerading as a doctor, and then only claiming to have certain medical skills. No matter what he lures his victims to is office to only gas them and follow it up by strangulation.One very tragic case where illiterate John Hurt moves into the building with wife Judy Geeson. Geeson totally sheds her high school imagine from "To Sir With Love," playing here a desperate wife who wishes to terminate the pregnancy with her second child.In the most horrendous way, Christie, our serial killer, turns the tables on Hurt claiming that he killed his wife and that with their constant arguing, no one would believe him.The film is a chilling indictment of capital punishment and our criminal justice system.

In the 1940s and 50s, a sick little pervert gassed, raped and strangled at least eight different people. This movie is a dramatization of some of his murders.The film begins during WWII and shows, with a bit too much detail, the murder of one of John Christie's victims. Then, the film jumps ahead to 1949 and follows one particular set of victims. Christie (Richard Attenborough) is the landlord for a couple (John Hurt and Judy Geeson). The couple are quite poor and dysfunctional and with the approach of an unwanted pregnancy, Christie offers to help. He claims to have a medical background and will perform an abortion. However, he intends to instead gas, rape and strangle her like his other victims. After her rape/murder, Christie tells the husband that she died as a result of the abortion. What happens next makes this an even sadder tale--but you'll have to see a terrible miscarriage of justice.This film is somewhat hard to watch. While the rape/murders are not shown in full detail, enough is shown to make the viewer uncomfortable--especially since the Christie murders at 10 Rillington Place actually did occur. No one knows just how many people he raped and killed, but they know of at least eight. The acting is very good (I particularly admired the acting of Attenborough but John Hurt was also very nice) and the film is technically well made--but also very, very unpleasant. I did not like the film but must praise it as a quality production.