Why was the place such a disgusting dump. I lived in a slum with an outside lab in the sixties but at least we gave it a lick of paint. Where they just scum or did the film makers try to make it grimmer than it probably was.
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shareThey made it shabby chic. In reality, the place was a slum. Watch the original film, that's how the decorating really was.
shareHave a look at this, it's a tour of 10 Rillington Place from around 1960: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17fMiuiLb1A
YOU SHOULDN'T BE EATING SAUSAGES!!
A lot of people aren't interested in decorating rented properties - and this was the 50s when there wasn't much money about. Although even having said that, it was pretty grim.
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It wasn't quite like that when the Christies arrived in 1938. Ethel's brother said the place was certainly in need of work, but it wasn't quite the slum it became. He and Ethel's sister Lily told the Sunday Pictorial that after decoration the downstairs flat at Rillington Place was "cosy" and "homely". That the landlord neglected the place, and had to be forced to undertake repairs at the time of Beryl's murder, there's no doubt. Before Ethel's murder number ten came in to the hands of a West Indian landlord, who I believe kept it until the mid-60s.
shareI'm afraid that in the end I was becoming fixated by the wallpaper - I can understand peeling paintwork, missing tiles, peeling, torn and missing wallpaper. I've lived in a flat with water running down the wall when it rained so there WAS no paper (and where the water flowed down no plaster either) but for the wallpaper to have been put up so badly from the start is hard to believe, great folds and creases. Not a good sign when the background distracts the attention from the (otherwise excellent albeit very depressing) drama.
shareI noticed this too. It could be that it was meant to look as if the old lath and plaster walls had cracked/moved and the paper had bulged in places, or it could have been meant to look as if it was just done very slapdash and on the cheap - the landlord of 10 Rillington Place obviously wasn't bothered with repairs or maintenance.
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