31 July 2013 - Let Him Have It

Working my way through Carol Ann Lee's excellent 'A Fine Day For A Hanging', I noticed mention made of the Derek Bentley case. Bentley, a young man with developmental problems, was hanged in January 1953 for the murder of Police Constable Sidney Miles during a bungled attempt to burgle a confectionery warehouse in Croydon. It was, in fact, Christopher Craig who fired the gun but, being only sixteen at the time, he was spared the death sentence. Unfortunately, Bentley who was just of adult age (despite being diagnosed of having the mental age of 10), was unanimously found guilty of murder and faced the rope. Similar to the Ruth Ellis case, this attracted numerous protests and calls to abolish the Death Penalty in UK.

I found among my numerous DVDs a copy of the forgotten 1991 film Let Him Have It directed by Peter Medak and featuring a young Christopher Eccleston as Bentley. The title refers to the words allegedly shouted by Bentley to Craig on the rooftop of the warehouse, when Detective Sergeant Fairfax demanded that Craig surrender his revolver. It was hotly debated whether these words meant "give him the gun" or "shoot him!" during the trial. Both Bentley and Craig denied these words were ever uttered.

The film, produced and shot in the UK, was originally offered to Alex Cox who planned to film it in black and white. Apparently the producers weren't too happy about this and it was subsequently offered to Hungarian-born Medak, who had directed The Krays the year before. It's a solid little low budget drama filled out with a great British cast including Tom Courtenay, Eileen Atkins and Tom Bell, and Eccleston is impressive in his movie debut. The film seems to have disappeared off the radar very quickly (well, it is low budget, British and pretty depressing - what do you expect), but for me it was interesting to watch again, in light of my research into the Ellis-era and highlighted the changing attitudes toward the Death Penalty in the 1950s.

I just wish they hadn't included the aerial shot at the close of the film - those distant views of early 1990s saloon cars kinda broke the illusion for me...