Frank Pakenham, the Earl of Longford, enjoyed a reputation as one of the most vigorous British social reformers of the 20th century -- that is, until he befriended a convicted serial killer who helped her domineering lover sadistically kill their young prey.
The HBO drama "Longford," which was screened at the Sundance Film Festival and airs Saturday, incisively depicts the complex friendship that developed between the earl and Myra Hindley, considered "the most reviled woman in Britain." It shows also how their relationship incensed a nation and earned him the nickname "Lord Wrongford."
"What a pretty smile you have," the film's avuncular Longford (Jim Broadbent) tells Hindley (Samantha Morton) at their fateful first meeting in 1968 at London's Holloway Prison, as other inmates and visitors look on with disgust. That smile contrasts with the unflinching stare the real Hindley gave the police photographer on the day she was arrested, at age 23, near Manchester, in October 1965. She and Ian Brady were tried the following April for killing three minors.
The death penalty having been suspended a few weeks after their arrests, Hindley and Brady were given life sentences. She told Longford there had been no more victims, but in 1987 the pair confessed to killing two other minors. The horrific nature of the so-called Moors murders shook the British public, and the pall hasn't dwindled with the passing years. In America, perhaps only the Manson killings have equal notoriety -- but their victims weren't children.
"The Moors murders resonate, I think, because of the age of the victims -- those of other British serial killers ... were almost all adults," said Duncan Campbell, a senior correspondent with The Guardian, who interviewed Longford several times. "Also there have been relatives of [Brady and Hindley's] victims who have been prepared to keep in touch with the media."
Initiated and written by Peter Morgan -- nominated for an Oscar for his script for "The Queen" -- and directed by Tom Hooper, "Longford" doesn't dwell on Hindley and Brady, as did "See No Evil: The Moors Murders," a TV movie shown in the Britain last May. The focus is the eccentric aristocrat of the title, a devout Catholic whose unshakable belief in compassion and forgiveness may have clouded his judgment. The film explores this and Hindley's intellectual seduction of him. She too was a Catholic and seemingly used the faith to impress him with the depth of her apparent remorse.
