True Crime Movies

[sdreid]

Hi all,

What about true crime movies?

My top ten:

10-Lonely Hearts (2006-U.S.-1:48) The murders by Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck

9-In Cold Blood (1967-U.S.-2:13) A black and white film about the Clutter family massacre

8-Murderous Maids [Les Blessures Assassines] (2000-Fr.-1:34) The murders by the Papin sisters

7-Let Him Have It (1991-U.K.-1:55) The Bentley and Craig case

6-Borderland (2007-U.S.-1:45) The Matamoros cult murders

5-The Man From the Pru (1989-U.K.-1:30) The unsolved Julia Wallace murder case

4-True Confessions (1981-U.S.-1:50) A film loosely based on the unsolved Black Dahlia murder

3-10 Rillington Place (1971-U.K.-1:51) The story of serial killer John Christie

2-The Young Poisoner's Handbook (1994-U.K.-1:39) The murders by Graham Young

1-White Mischief (1988-U.K.-1:48) The unsolved murder of the Earl of Errol

I'll also add a guilty pleasure:

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976-U.S.-1:30) The unsolved Texarkana Phantom murders

[needler]

One you forgot......

How about DANDELION DEAD?? A BBC made for PBS Mystery!, I believe. Michael Kitchen is marvelous as Armstrong, and Sarah Miles made me want to kill her myself! Lovely performance by David Thewlis, as well. Very well done, low key and absolutely riveting. That said, if Armstrong did NOT do it, he should have!

My vote for #1 MUST be IN COLD BLOOD....theatrical release, NOT TV version.

Number #2 MUST be 10 RILLINGTON PLACE; Attenborough is terrifyingly creepy, Hurt is terrific (as always), Geeson is perfect as Mrs Evans.

This one is fun, for a change............and here's a question for everyone: besides the Broadbent/Morton LONGFORD, does anyone think we'll see one on the Moors Murders??

Cheers,

Judy

[sdreid]

Hi Judy,

Yes, I love Dandelion Dead and have it on tape. It just isn't quite in my top ten. I most remember Herbert's shoes falling off at the end.

The TV In Cold Blood wasn't as good as the theatrical, I agree, but it wasn't bad either.

Wasn't there a TV movie other than Longford about Brady and Hindley? Maybe it was just in the proposal stage. To my knowledge, neither has played in the States if there are two.

[sdreid]

Found it - See No Evil: The Moors Murders (2006) made for TV and was 180 minutes long

[jmenges]

Swoon about Leopold and Loeb, while I believe trashed in the press, was in my opinion quite enjoyable.

edit- and M ain't a bad flick either...

JM

[sdreid]

Hi JM,

Yes, both are good. I have the former in tape and the latter on DVD.

[kensei]

"The Town that Dreaded Sundown" is also a guilty pleasure of mine, though every time I watch the ending I tell myself this can't possibly be the way it really happened. My critique of true crime movies comes down to accuracy. There are some made-for-tv American ones that haven't done too badly, though they are necessarily watered-down, such as "Hunt for the Nightstalker" about Richard Ramirez (though comparing the actors that play detectives Salerno and Carillo to pictures of them in real life brings a hearty laugh). There is a straight-to-video movie about Bundy, simply titled "Ted Bundy," that when I first saw it I thought was way too embellished, but then I did some in-depth reading on Bundy and found that he really had done all that crazy stuff.

Recent theatrical movies in America- I found the fictionalized "Black Dahlia" appalling, an insult to the very real victim. But with "Zodiac," now we're talking. Mostly accurate and very well done. Even for people who enjoy the investigation but don't like to watch violence, all the murders happen in the first 20 minutes or so and are then over with. And it's amusing that the chief suspect (which the movie pretty much decides was indeed the killer) is played by the actor who formerly played the cross-dressing brother on the Drew Carey Show.

[KatBradshaw]

The Stranger Beside Me, about the Bundy Case.
Fatal Vision about the McCdonald case.
Small Sacrifices about the Diane Downes case.

[sdreid]

Kat-Those were all good made for TV movies as I recall.

Kensei-Yes, how true is true crime? The recent big budget Zodiac was pretty good and I understand that the retail DVD has a lot of good extras in it. I've found about 500 films that were in some way based on an actual case although I haven't seen them all. That Black Dahlia movie wasn't that bad in my view but I doubt that it would make my top 50 list. Deliciously low budget is The Town That Dreaded Sundown and wonderfully creepy sometimes too. Is that Ted Bundy film the one with the rather graphic electric chair prep scene?

[KatBradshaw]

Yes they were.
I also enjoyed Zodiac which was out recently.

[sdreid]

My favorite made for TV movie here is Murder In the Heartland about Starkweather and Fugate. It would be just outside my top ten.

[evilina]

Not movies as such - but i really enjoyed Julian Fellowes a Most Mysterious Murder series. It didn't always agree with him, but i thought that the show was really well done

[evilina]

There was also a good tv movie about the bogle chandler case last year.

[sdreid]

Hi Evilina,

Yes, I love those and have the box set. I think my favorite is the one on Duff-Sidney but all of them are great.

I haven't seen the Bogle Chandler one. Is that an Australian release?

[Celesta]

I know it's an old one, but I liked Small Sacrifices with Farrah Fawcett, about the woman who killed her kids because they were inconvenient.