The Electric At War 1939-1945
THE LEGEND OF JOHN CHRISTIE
Was the notorious serial killer a projectionist at the Electric?
Perhaps the Electric’s darkest story, it is rumoured serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie worked as a projectionist for the cinema in the late 40s. However, with the absence of payroll records, it remains but a “a strong local legend” and some historians place him in the booth of the nearby Rio.
Christie murdered up to eight women, his wife Ethel included, strangling them at his flat at 10 Rillington Place in Notting Hill (since demolished) where he also interred the bodies (he also used the garden). Suffering a gas attack as an infantryman in World War I, Christie claimed to be unable to speak out-loud, and this horrible, whispering villain rendered his victims unconscious with household gas, before raping and strangling them. He was caught and hanged in 1953. A particularly grisly episode depicted in the Richard Attenborough movie 10 Rillington Place in 1971. A role the actor found deeply troubling.
It is a matter of record that the notorious figure had worked as a projectionist Halifax, and that fateful address is near to the Imperial (as the Electric was then named). Former manager Peter Howden, claimed he had gotten to know a retired projectionist Mr. Rauschmann, who was certain Christie had worked at the Imperial. Given he began his murder in 1943, he might well have been projected films on the very days he had killed…
Under the grand title The Imperial Playhouse, the Electric weathered the initial wartime order for cinemas to close in fear of gathering crowds during the Blitz. But as London grew resilient to the raids, the day-to-day life of the cinema carried on. Indeed, if air raids commenced during a showing, an announcement would calmly flash onto the screen and the audience would head for the nearest shelter collecting a refund on the way out. Records recall that both Old Mother Riley Captures A Quisling and Thunder In The City were rudely interrupted by German bombers.
During air raids audiences headed to the shelter collecting a refund on their way out.
The Imperial Playhouse, one of a chain of eight at the time, was still not classified as a first-run cinema, rather renting films from a variety of distributors, mixing a pair of news reels with second runs on classics-to-be like Grapes Of Wrath, and His Girl Friday. The rapid change over of films suggested a policy of quantity over quality. Government legislation also required a certain percentage of British films occupy screens. This required the rapid production of local films, where quantity once again ruled quality, and they were dubbed the “Quota Quicky”.
Even as postwar austerity dented cinema audiences, the Imperial Playhouse defied trends and blossomed. Local returning servicemen hungry for entertainment were likely drawn to Portobello Road’s cheap prices. There was also the plush décor. Memories from the era, all recall the lustrous tip-up seating, red carpets, and a commissionaire dressed in a florid uniform.
Shortly after the armistice, there is record of a fire. Hurriedly written in the day-books, beneath the day’s screenings of Prison Without Bars and Exile Express is the note “Closed 4.15pm due to fire”. No tickets were sold for three months.
