(Richard Fleischer, UK 1971, 111 min.)

In a frighteningly real performance, Richard Attenborough plays the notorious British serial killer John Christie, who murdered at least six women in his Notting Hill flat during the 1940s and 1950s. An equally powerful John Hurt plays Timothy Evans, Christie’s neighbor, and perhaps his ultimate victim. The rigorous but unflashy direction by Richard Fleischer makes for a gripping tale of true crime that puts it in a league with Compulsion and The Boston Strangler, Fleischer’s other masterworks of the genre.

RICHARD ATTENBOROUGH: TWO GREAT PORTRAITS IN VILLAINY

Before he became well known as an Oscar-winning producer/director of such gargantuan historical epics as Gandhi, Cry Freedom, and Chaplin or for his portrayal of the kindly grandfather who is founder of Jurassic Park, Richard Attenborough was first recognized as one of the most versatile actors in postwar British cinema. Sort of a Philip Seymour Hoffman of his era, Attenborough’s medium physical stature, unconventional looks, and immense talent allowed him to easily shuttle between character roles and leading man assignments. Always eager to tackle a juicy role, and seemingly unconcerned with developing a restrictive “star” persona, Attenborough’s two most striking film performances are distinct portraits in murderous villainy, separated by 24 years.

1947’s Brighton Rock, based on an early bestseller by Graham Greene, was Attenborough’s breakthrough film. He plays Pinkie Brown, a vicious but charismatic thug in a pre-war England resort town. who manipulates women and kills off his rivals, while he grapples with his own salvation, the primary existential dilemma in Greene’s literary canon.

After he became a filmmaker himself, Attenborough was asked to play the notorious British real-life serial killer John Christie in American director Richard Fleischer’s terrifying 1971 crime drama 10 Rillington Place. Christie murdered at least six women in his Notting Hill flat during the 1940s and 1950s and the rigorous, but unflashy direction helps put the film in a league with Compulsion and The Boston Strangler, Fleischer’s other masterworks of the genre.

But the real driving force in both of these spellbinders, which will be showing in newly restored 35mm prints in the Dryden Theatre, is Attenborough’s focused and precise renderings of deeply troubled men. Whether the character is fictional or based on a real person, his masterful technique humanizes Pinkie and Christie, which has the effect of making them all the more frighteningly real.

—Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department