Lady Killers/Ladykillers (1980 Granada series)

[Mel O'Drama]

Not to be mistaken for the Ealing comedy. But try telling that to search engines.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2146595892048766

As far as I can it's one show with two series, two different premises and two subtly different titles to reflect the change in premise. The subjects of the first series are women who kill (Lady Killers, if you will), while the second focusses on men who kill women (Ladykillers).

From the two episodes I've watched so far, it plays out like a prime time version of Crown Court, except with a period setting and based on real-life crimes.

Barbara Kellerman - best known to me as the scary-stroke-camp White Witch in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - was the accused in Episode One. And she looked stunningly beautiful with her porcelain features framed by a black hat, veil and stole.

For the second episode I was curious how Elaine Paige would perform in a straight - non musical theatre - role. She really impressed me, right down to what sounded a fairly convincing regional Irish accent. In the latter part of her episode she had reams of dialogue, including a lengthy monologue which went to some most disturbing places. In fact it was that speech which has set the bar for this series as one that could be quite unsettling and chilling.

She even shared a scene with Summer Wine's Cleggy, which was a little surreal. A fragment of their scene can be seen 38 seconds into this nostalgia-inspiring video:

They're two of a number of familiar faces so far. And I know there are many, many more to come in the next twelve episodes. Joan Sims in a straight role is something I feel very excited about watching in due course.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Series One of Lady Killers has become quite compelling.

Of the episodes so far, Ruth Ellis is probably the accused whose name is most familiar to me with her being the last woman to be executed in the UK. Georgina Hale did a very nice job of playing Ellis as factual and detached, showing more interest in shallow details like her thrill on being allowed to maintain her bleach job for the trial. So much so one couldn't help but wonder if she was in some kind of denial or ongoing shock. Or if she was suffering from a severe mental health issue.

Joanna David as Mary Pearcey is the only lead actress so far with whom I'm not familiar. Which possibly helped as I found her performance great. But then...

The Fifth Episode is the most touching of the series so far. Rita Tushingham played Charlotte Bryant - accused of murdering her lover with arsenic - with such fragility and confusion that it's difficult not to invest. And even more so by seeing the impact the death sentence has on her - with her hair turning grey almost overnight and the false hope that comes with proffered grounds for appeal. To see her hopes rise and fall - and with the latter, a firm resolve not to see the young children who are her world - is heartbreaking. It's heavily suggested that Bryant is innocent; that facts that could have proved this were summarily dismissed; and that the judge led the jury by not ordering them to exclude unrelated facts from their decision.

Tushingham said very little during the first half of the episode, but spoke volumes with her eyes. She's been the best thing on this entire series to date. Apart from her recurring role in Bread (my first awareness of her), the film of Rita's I know best is Straight On Till Morning. She was heartbreaking in that as well.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Original recipe Lady Killers has now finished.

Madeleine Smith and Amelia Dyer were the last two subjects. Smith being notable for being the only person not executed during the series. She was, in fact, found not guilty.

Something that's been a theme in the majority of episodes has been a lack of certainty. Smith may have been released, but doubt hung over the verdict.

Meanwhile, Dyer is hanged and there's still a degree doubt about her guilt. Certainly as the episode tells it, there's a suggestion that her daughter and son-in-law could have pinned the murder on Amelia: an easy target due to her poor mental health. Reading about Dyer online suggests otherwise. It seems her guilt was in no doubt. But her sanity is another matter.

It's quite a challenging role for Joan Sims. It's almost several roles, in fact, since Dyer seemed prone to huge mood swings which affected how she presented herself. She could be detached and reading her Bible in court while she's spoken about, then singing hymns and dancing in her cell. And tearful when hearing testimonies from the young mothers of the babies killed.

There's also the fact that she is, very recognisably, Joan Sims. The warm smile, sparkling eyes and cheeky smile are very much still there. I'd worried this may hinder my ability to invest, but actually it was the other way round.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Having had a fairly free evening last night, I'm already over 40% of the way through the Series Two version of the series: now about Ladykillers rather than Lady Killers, and retitled thus.

It was a bit of a surprise to see Joan Sims's name on the credits for the opening episode, focussing on Dr Crippen. While returnees playing different characters haven't been in short supply by any means, I wondered if I'd find it jarring to see Joan appearing in the next episode from the one in which her character was hanged to death (albeit ten months later by original transmission date). I needn't have worried, since I didn't actually see her. Only her voice could be heard. Still, she played the titular Miss Elmore - Crippen's wife who was traded in for Hannah Gordon. The prison warder (or is it police officer?) with whom Crippen bonds was played by Jim Carver from The Bill, so at least his screen career was fairly consistent.

Promisingly the second and third episodes proved even more watchable than the first.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Tonight's double-bill has been very watchable. I wanted to say enjoyable, but it's not really that kind of series. It feels almost sinful to enjoy it, even though it has its moments.

There was a bit of a "future American prime time soap guest" theme, with Christopher Cazenove taking the lead as Ronald True in the first, with Gayle Hunnicutt in the second.

This series is certainly interesting from a psychology point of view. As with Joan Sims in the first series, Cazenove played True as someone who may or may not be in very poor mental health (and so arguably not responsible for his crime). Indeed, True is one of the few leads to escape the gallows, getting a reprieve and enjoying the rest of his life in Broadmoor, where his wealth ensured he was well looked after and had lackeys to serve him. It's a very interesting performance from Christopher. He had to get across some very complex - often contradictory - emotions in a very short space of time. And he was successful. Is that a rogueish twinkle in his eyes, or glistening tears. Sometimes it was both. And by all accounts the lack of consistency reprieve of the wealthy True and the contemporaneous hanging of a poor man, Henry Jacoby, who also committed murder while clearly not mentally competent made the decision - and True himself - very unpopular with the public, and affected how insanity pleas were treated after that. Jacoby appears in the episode as someone in a nearby cell who forms a bond with True.

Hunnicutt, meanwhile, was the very essence of cool composure as Edith Thompson for her episode: up to the point where Thompson was found guilty and sentenced to death. And then she became a wreck. The level of fraught emotion was quite startling and again a little unexpected. Christopher Villiers was excellent as Frederick Bywaters, her young lover whom she coldly and emphatically betrayed in court in a bid to (quite literally) save her own neck. Again, he showed far more than was on the page. We could see his naïvety and could see when he attempted to lie on the stand out of gallantry (as could everyone else). We could see his confusion and hurt when Thompson told a different story to the court from the one he knew to be true. And we saw his loyalty in insisting on Thompson's good name, and in facing up to his impending hanging.

The standout of the episode - and the most affecting performance of the entire series to date - is Margaret Tyzak as Bywaters' mother, Lillian, already widowed and now facing up to losing her young son. There's a quiet grace to her performance, and it's clear where Frederick got his sense of good from (a virtue of which Thompson arguably took advantage).

There's a terrific scene towards episode's end where Lillian pays her final visit to Frederick before he is to be hanged. Each is trying to boost the morale of the other and to hide their fears, which gives the scene a potent fragility. Frederick asks his mother to write to Thompson and treat her as she would a daughter, and you can almost feel Lillian wrestling with her own inner turmoil as she quietly agrees to do this, knowing it will give her son some peace of mind. As she leaves the cell, she asks permission to kiss her son, which is granted. They embrace, she kisses his forehead. And after a while the guards physically wrench them apart, and I could almost taste the finality and the despair. Frederick asks his mum to keep smiling. She leaves, walks a few steps along the corridor and then throws her head back and covers her mouth to muffle the cries of anguish which come and won't stop. We cut to Frederick in the cell, no longer putting up a brave front, listening to his mother's pain. It's an incredibly powerful scene and beautifully played. I wasn't expecting this series to make me well up and leave me feeling almost shaken by the raw emotion, but this did it for me.

The relationship between the prisoners and the guards has been enjoyable during this series. In each episode, each prisoner usually has two guards who are in the cell with them practically full time (they're seen to change shifts, so that two different guards take over at night). The bonding they do - sometimes almost to the point of friendship - and their own experiences of grief as the person they've got to know intimately is taken to die has been one of the more thought-provoking aspects of the series. As one would expect, this gives them their own perspective on capital punishment. As young Jim Carver commented at the beginning of Series Two: "It's never right."

 

[Mel O'Drama]

The last two episodes were ticked off last night. So that's all from me.

As I don't think I've mentioned Robert Morley at all, I'll just quickly mentioned that, even though they're pretty much superfluous, I've thoroughly enjoyed his Alfred Hitchcock/Roald Dahl type introductions. His eyes twinkling as he confides the bloody, salacious details of each case to the viewer (one can easily imagine a table banquet just out of camera shot, which he turns to devour and wash down with mead while gleefully watching the episode).

His name and face are instantly familiar, and yet I struggle to think of very many things at all in which I've seen him. Possibly Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines on telly on a rainy bank holiday during childhood. He did very little yet somehow set the tone for the entire series.