Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman (2006)

Following in the footsteps of his father and uncle before him, Albert Pierrepoint (Timothy Spall) joins the 'family business'. He becomes the most feared and respected executioner in Britain, hanging over 450 people before his sudden resignation in 1956. Living a double life as a master craftsman hangman, and as a grocery deliveryman and loyal husband, Pierrepoint's obsession with becoming the 'Number One' executioner in the country results in a fate he could not have chosen.

Very fine film.

I thought this was an extraordinary film. I have to say that when the English do films well, they do them really well. This is the story of Albert Pierrepoint who was not the last hangman in England, but who wants to quibble. His precision and his matter of fact approach to the art (he makes it seem like and art) of killing people as quickly and as painlessly as possible is fascinating. His way of approaching his victim is well choreographed and is very understandable. Out standing performances by Timothy Spall and the rest of the cast. Being English of course they are for the most part unknown to the film world outside England but they all give great performances. This is to be watched again and again. A real keeper October 21, 2008

Grim, interesting, quietly polemical, and with two magnificent performances by Timothy Spall and Juliet Stevenson

Albert Pierrepoint was a paragon of lower-middle-class respectability. He and his wife, Annie, lived in a small, tidy house. His favorite supper was pork chop. He was not too keen a man, but serious about those things he held important. Annie was loyal, kept a quiet house and served his meals on time. They had no children. Albert Pierrepoint's job was delivering wholesale supplies to markets. He also had a part-time job, a job he didn't speak about. He hanged people. He did so punctiliously, with dedication and decency. Albert Pierrepoint, according to the movie, was the United Kingdom's last chief hangman. It was a job that ran in his family. His father and uncle were official hangmen, too. Between 1933 and 1955, Pierrepoint hanged over 600 people. Nearly a third were Nazi war criminals.

He took with pride and seriousness his duties. When called to perform a hanging he always took the train to the prison site, stayed a night, insisted upon a hot meal, and became so proficient he was able to move the prisoner from the holding cell to the gallows and then to the drop in an average of little more than 11 seconds. His best time was 7.5 seconds, but some believe this prisoner cooperated by stepping to the noose even faster than Pierrepoint. He believed that when a prisoner was hanged the person's guilt was cleansed. He treated the body with respect, cleaning it carefully (the relaxation of the sphincter muscles can sometimes cause a loss of dignity for the dead), and insisting on a coffin of proper size.

He was a dedicated practitioner of his craft. Over time he developed a useful chart that analyzed body weight, body height and rope length, He used the chart to insure that the length of the rope was exactly what was required for the drop to break the neck cleanly between the second and third vertebrae. Before Pierrepoint's analysis and his chart, many hangings resulted in slow strangulation if the prisoner was not heavy and the drop too short, or in snapping off of the prisoner's head if the prisoner was heavy and the drop too long. Either situation can result in discomfort for those observing and acute professional embarrassment for the hangman.

Albert Pierrepoint's life changed abruptly when his work executing Nazis (he was personally selected for the job by Field Marshal Montgomery) became public knowledge. He became a hero to the British public. He resigned his duties in 1956 over a disputed payment. He and Annie continued to run the pub he had bought partly with his earnings from the Nazi executions. Later, he became a target for those opposed to capital punishment. He died, full of years, in 1992 in a nursing home.

As with many biographical and social-issue movies, the director enjoys cleverness and has a social bone to pick, in this case, capital punishment. Just be aware that Albert Pierrepoint is magnificently portrayed by that wonderful actor, Timothy Spall. Juliet Stevenson, one of Britain's great actresses and who is bound to be made a Dame one of these years, is just as good as Annie Pierrepoint. They are worth seeing the picture for, regardless of your tolerance, or lack of it, for hanging Nazis to a Strauss waltz or for the director's willingness to stretch or invent things to make his social point. While the movie, for example, says Pierrepoint managed over 600 hangings, the best research according to some puts the number at about 425 (still a number any conscientious hangman could be proud of). Pierrepoint wasn't the last of the United Kingdom's hangmen and he wasn't really a hangman for the United Kingdom. The movie's emphasis on Pierrepoint's disillusion with capital punishment avoids Pierrepoint's own equivocations. As many directors might say, these are just quibbles that get in the way of a larger artistic truth.

For all of the Strauss waltzes, the hangings are shown in grim detail and in close-ups. There is not the slightest attempt to avoid the truth that killing people in cold blood, even if the state demands it, requires that aspect of our nature which is hard to reconcile with our basic beliefs and our daily lives. There are times when I found the movie difficult to watch. At least two of the persons Pierrepoint hanged were later found innocent and, to the joy of their corpses, given posthumous pardons.

As you might expect, the movie, which was made originally as a British TV program, went nowhere in Britain. Renamed The Last Executioner for the American market and released briefly in a handful of theaters, it tanked even faster. It's a well-crafted movie, but often grim and polemical. The performances of Spall, in particular, and Stevenson just about redeem any failings. The two are excellent. To enjoy just how fine and versatile an actor Timothy Spall is, watch him in costume as the Mikado in Topsy-Turvy, as a photo archivist in Shooting the Past and as the noxious beadle in Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. For Juliet Stevenson, a couple of her finest performances, I think, are as Nina in Truly Madly Deeply and as the wronged Flora Matlock in The Politician's Wife. October 18, 2008

The executioner's biography

Between 1933 and 1955, Albert Pierrepoint was the executioner in the service of government of England. In that period of service, he has hanged over 600 individuals. I was curious to watch this movie in order to find out what it takes to become a second generation executioner (Albert's father was also a hangman)? What goes through a mind of a person performing this task? How do family members handle such choice of profession? Could such horrific job bring some value to humanity and dignity to the ones being executed? Albert seemed to believe that people he hanged have paid for their sins and deserved proper burial last expressions of dignity. He has devoted his life in perfecting the hanging process so that death in instantenous and painless. He treated everyone the same - even the condemned German officers after WWII trials that were executed for their war crimes. An amazing character study of a man who has a loyal husband, dutiful son, a devoted friend and consummate professional in his trade. A man who after 22 year long career as an executioner admitted that he did not believe in capital punishment after all... October 6, 2008

What A Movie !!!!

I can't think of a thing to add to any of the + reviews on here , the movie was EXCELLENT & the actor portraying Mr. Pierrepoint looks enough like him to be a Very Close Brother & his acting was right on with the book. I would reccommend reading the book first [ Executioner : Pierrepoint ],as it reveals a lot more & evidently Timothy Spall who portrayed Mr. Pierrepoint in the movie must have read it, as he does an unbelieveable job portraying the emotions & feel exactly of Mr. Pierrepoint !!!It's as IF Mr. Pierrepoint himself walked out of the book & into the movie.
One of the best movies & book i ever saw & read !!! 10 stars + May 3, 2008

Timothy Spall as a Hangman with Humanity

The title of this film is a little misleading as Albert Pierrepoint was not Britain's last hangman. He was however Britain's most famous hangman following in the footsteps of both his father and his uncle. What might suprise Americans is the speed of British executions. Having watched death house scenes in many American movies we are used to the process of execution taking minutes as the condemed walk to the chair or gas chamber, they are the strapped in and asked for any last words. The process taking quite a time and must be nerve racking for all concerned. British executions as shown in this film take only seconds from Pierrrepoint entering the death cell to the condemed man being dead. This film shows one execution taking only seven seconds. As a Brit I may be biased, but it does appear to me that we carried out executions with more humanity than our US cousins.

This film portrays Pierrepoint as the total professional, not even interested in what the condemed has done only in their height, weight and physical condition. A man who takes pride in the speed of his work and not hurting those about to die. A man who carries out his work with humanity without becoming a monster. Such was Pierrepoint's standing in the prison service, though not with the public as his idendity was kept secret, that he was choosen by Field Marshal Montgommery to execute German war criminals following World War II. It is this that brings Pierrepoint to the public's attention and he is hailed as a hero by the British people.

Timothy Spall is in great form as Albert Pierrepoint an ordinary man with an extraordinary job, although it was never a full time occupation. Juliet Stevenson is also first rate as his wife. Spall shows how doubt slowly enters Pierrepoint's mind. At first he is convinced he is carrying an important task. He does however say it is not him killing the condemed, that is the judge and jury. Slowly he comes to hate his role and uses an quarrel over expenses as an excuse to resign as a hangman. We also see how the British public's attitude to the deth penalty changed in the fifties and sixties, Pierrepoint once the hero being called a murderer. Although it is doubtful that a majority of the British people ever opposed hanging.

The film ends with Pierrepoint's famous quote about the death penalty acceiving nothing but vengance. This however does not mean that Pierrepoint was opposed to the death penalty some authorites claiming that he supported it to the day he died.

All in all a good film about an unusal subject.

March 3, 2008

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