Crime drama based on the true story of the infamous Christie murders, starring Richard Attenborough, Judy Geeson and John Hurt. The young married couple who become John Christie's new neighbours in Rillington Place are impressed by his apparent medical knowledge. When wife Beryl discovers she is pregnant, her husband Timothy turns to him for help, unaware that the charming Christie is a killer.
In 1950, Timothy Evans went to the gallows for the murder of his infant daughter. It later transpired that John Reginald Christie, the family's landlord and a wartime special constable, was responsible for the crime - among many others. Based on the book by Ludovic Kennedy that helped secure Evans's posthumous pardon in 1966, Richard Fleischer's film is nowhere near as visually audacious as his Boston Strangler two years previously. But it does contain an acting tour de force from Richard Attenborough as the seedy killer, who boasted openly of his ability to perform "minor operations". Superbly re-creating the atmosphere of late-1940s London, this is a chilling study of an evil mind.
| role | name |
|---|---|
| John Reginald Christie | Richard Attenborough |
| Beryl Evans | Judy Geeson |
| Timothy John Evans | John Hurt |
| Mrs Ethel Christie | Pat Heywood |
| Alice | Isobel Black |
| Baby Geraldine | Miss Riley |
| Muriel Eady | Phyllis McMahon |
| Workman Willis | Ray Barron |
| Workman Jones | Douglas Blackwell |
| Mrs Lynch | Gabrielle Daye |
| Mr Lynch | Jimmy Gardner |
| Detective Inspector | Edward Evans |
| Detective Sergeant | Tenniel Evans |
| Constable | David Jackson (1) |
| Constable | Jack Carr |
| Constable | George Lee |
| Constable | Richard Coleman |
| Judge Lewis | André Morell |
| Malcolm Morris | Robert Hardy |
| Christmas Humphreys | Geoffrey Chater |
| Medical Board | Basil Dignam |
| Medical Board | Norman Henry |
| Medical Board | Edward Burnham |
| Hangman | Edwin Brown |
| Woman in cafe | Norma Shebbeare |
| Furniture dealer | Sam Kydd |
| Tramp | Reg Lye |
| West Indian | Rudolph Walker |
| West Indian | Tommy Ansah |
| Plainclothes sergeant | Edward Cast |
| Desk sergeant | Tony Thawnton |
| Man in Pub | Fred Hugh |
| Man in Pub | Art Gross |
| Man in Pub | Howard Lang |
| Irish tenor | Uel Deane |
| Old lady | Margaret Boyd |
| role | name |
|---|---|
| Director | Richard Fleischer |
