Original subtitles

Now, my old darling, they've laid her down to rest, and now I'm missing her

all we are.

But they don't give a monkey's down at the age of ten, and they call it I'll be

pension for a star.

No, it won't be very long before I'm pi -er -stine, but I'll probably starve to

death, that's what I'll do.

But richer or poorer, I'm bloody poor, that's a fact, just cos' in sickness

in health, but I'll do.

Where are you going? I thought I'd come in with you. I don't need you up there.

Oh, they might want a reference.

So? Well, I can give them one.

They don't want to know what you think of me, my dear. They want to know what

last employer thought of me.

Your last employer?

Then he'd come on like Doris Stokes to contact him.

That's funny, Kat. You get on with what you've got to do here.

Don't need you up the job centre. Get me own jobs, thank you very much. All

right. Do you know what they're going to say, don't you? No, I don't know what

they're going to say. They're not going to ask me where you are, are they?

You're too old, that's what they're going to say. Well, it's not going to

me look any younger as you come up there with me, is it? No, but if you want to

lie about your age, I can be a witness.

A witness to what?

That you're telling the truth.

I see.

And they're going to believe you, are they?

Make it a lot easier if you had air.

What difference will it make if I had hair?

Anyway, if I had hair, it would be grey and falling out by now, like Arthur's

is. Arthur's hair's not falling out. Well, he ain't had the responsibilities

I've had.

Anyway, for all his hair, Arthur don't look no younger than me, do he?

Well?

I don't want an argument.

Anyway, it's not him going for a job, is it?

Look.

Baldness, my dear, is a sign of virility that has a well -known scientific fact.

Oh, well, I don't know about that. I mean, it might be a scientific fact. But

you was married years.

You only had the one child.

And apart from that, I haven't seen any evidence. I am talking about cerebral

virility, cerebral vigour. Not physical, mental, mental.

Well, all the sex symbols seem to have air. I'm talking about the brain part of

human head. I mean, nearly all your best brains, all your scientists, all your

leaders of industry, all the top politicians, they're all bald.

Every one of them.

Margaret Thatcher's not bald.

Winston Churchill was.

The greatest man the world has ever seen. He was our greatest leader, he

And he was bold. Very early bold, he went.

Michael Esselstyn's not bold.

Ian McLeod was bold.

Nigel Lawson's not bold. Sir Alex Douglas Hume was bold.

Douglas Hurd's not bold.

Well, Rad Butler was bold.

Sir Geoffrey Howe's not bold. In fact, none of the government are bold.

Well, perhaps it was a better government when they was bold.

In fact, the only... politician stands out bald is Kinnock.

And I've never heard you refer to his great brain power. I am not talking

the Labour lot, my dear. They're like gorillas, they are, most of them.

Perhaps old Kinnock shaved his nut to make him look like he had got a brain.

I am talking, my dear, about the better class of person. They don't go in for

air. I mean, none of your royals have got air.

Look at them.

Your Philip, your Charles, even young Edward.

Very, very early bald. He went, well, blimey, if hair was so important, don't

you think your royals would have it?

Queen's not bald.

All right, all right.

It don't suit women, I grant you that. See, look, what I'm talking about is

this. See, when we was all monkeys... Yeah, some of us still are.

When we was all monkeys, we had lots of hair then, didn't we? All over us it

was, see? But as we grew bigger and bigger brains, so we grew lesser and

hair.

Grass don't grow on a busy street, does it?

Boy, we don't want to go back to them days, do we?

What day?

When we was monkeys and had hair all over us and tails and things.

No, I don't want to go back to them days, no. Not when we had tails and

and hair all over us.

There you are, then.

I think it's nice to have a bit on your head, though.

No.

Pull this scarf round your neck.

It's not cold out.

No, I'm trying to cover the wrinkles in your neck. Get off. Now, come here, come

here. Keep your hat on all the time. I wasn't going to take it off, not for

them. It's a pity it's not a younger looking hat.

What would you like me to wear, my dear school cat?

How long you had that thing? It's none of your business.

You should try and make more out of yourself.

Now stand up. You slouch.

Straighten your back.

What are you doing?

Trying to darken it. Get off of me. Get off.

They don't like me as I am. If I'm not good enough for them as I am... What's

that? What?

Get... Get off of me.

Too old?

If Churchill was alive still, he'd be too old, I suppose.

We're all from the bloody cradle we are these days. Bloody kids with beards.

I've worked hard all my life. I haven't. When I worked, made in Britain meant

something. Now...

Nobody wants to buy British, not even us.

You can't get nothing British to buy.

It's all Japanese or anything else foreign.

In debt to the bloody world we are now.

We'll all be evicted out of England soon, that's what'll happen.

You see, evicted out of our own bleak country, this is what we'll be.

We ruled the world once, and now the world rules us.

I mean, if I'd got a job, I'd be working for a bloody Japanese.

Japanese bailiffs will swing us out of here soon.

Bloody politicians, they might have hair, they've got no bloody sense. Oh,

we'll take them to Europe as slaves.

Slaves to foreign wage packet.

Join them, we'll make them join us. We'll take them over.

We'll be allowed to speak our own language soon.

English will be banned.

With a bloody sign.

And our money.

What little we've got of it will be German Deutsche Marks and Japanese Yens.

Whose face will be on it, eh?

Not amazing the Queen, God bless her, no.

Not good enough for them. We should never have joined up with all them wogs

the Common Market. Not until they agreed to make the Queen Empress of Europe.

You're going to stuff your job. You're going to stuff it right up your chest.

You're going to charge your fleet and we'll go.

You say that to me once more and you won't live to be anywhere near as old as

am.

Bloody fool.

I could have been killed.

Bloody idiot.

Get out of here.

Oh, dear.

Well, I haven't got you insured.

See what you made me do?

Thanks for coming. My pleasure.

Well... Goodbye, Mrs Hollingbury.

Goodbye.

Cheerio!

Hi. Who was that?

Sonny, your business!

No, you strange men, it's my house. It is my business. It's my house, too.

There's not a point letting strange men wander about the house. That's how

burglars get in.

Burglars? Yeah, that's how they find out what you've got. Come knocking on the

front door, make out from the gas or the electric, and daft women like you let

them in.

Don't you read the papers, my dear?

It's full of it.

Woman alone in the house attacked by rapists.

Rapists?

Rapists have jobs, you know. They're not all unemployed.

You must know he would like you to be examined.

Examined?

Examined? What for?

Mumps? AIDS?

Driving tests?

What do you mean, examined?

I've been advised to get you insured.

Do what?

Well, I've got to think about my future.

Never mind about your... What about my future?

Oh, it won't affect you. You'll be all right. You'll be gone.

I mean...

I'm left here with all the worries and the funeral expenses.

I mean, what you don't understand is that the longer you go on, the more it's

going to cost me.

Well, I see what you're after.

You're after the profit, ain't you?

Not content with what you got out of your last husband?

Greed! Greed, that's what it is! I was thinking of you.

Me? Me?

Well, you want a nice funeral, don't you? A decent send -off? At least a bit

better than your wife had. Poor woman, God rest her soul.

She'd have been buried off as a counsellor, buried off!

Well, the counsellor's going to bury you!

Don't you worry. Yes, and I'll dance on your grave.

Shut up.

I brought these out to show you, Arthur.

What's that?

My X -rays. X -rays?

Yeah. I knew it, didn't I?

I ain't seen these before.

No, but I don't show them around.

Mrs. Ollenbury says I ought to show them more, you know, let people know what

I've been through. I bet you're proud of these.

You're going to get them framed?

Afraid? Yeah, put them on the mantelpiece.

Has he brought them things over here? No.

I'm about to look at those. He's made me look at those.

I told him I don't want to look inside him bad enough having to look at the

outside of him.

It's full frontal, isn't it?

I suppose in and away.

It's just bone, though.

It's disgusting.

It's my x -ray.

You haven't got any clothes on.

There's no skin showing.

If there was skin, then you would... Yeah, that's right. Yeah,

I don't know. I mean, technically, everything's revealed, isn't it?

What's revealed?

Well, it's suggestive, isn't it?

That's why I knew it.

Yeah? Well, that's your pelvis there, you're saying? That's your pelvis.

It's more like the Phantom of the Opera to me.

You know, Mr President, he got himself banned off the television for shaking

pelvis, didn't he? Yes, and he had his clothes on. He wasn't showing it off.

What are you talking about? It's medical.

Are you going to get me a drink?

Medical. Page three girl could claim that. She could claim that what she

is under medical.

It would be if there's something wrong with them and a doctor's got to look at

them. But if he starts taking X -ray photographs and showing them to other

people, it's like, core, you want to look at these? These are X -rays of Miss

What's -its -thing -a -me, Bob.

He'd get struck off, wouldn't he? There wouldn't be nothing to see, Arthur.

There'd just be two big holes where they would normally run through from.

Which comes under suggestive, and being suggestive is well into the realms of

indecency. You could get banned off the television for being suggestive. You can

get banned anywhere, out of any respectable company.

Decent people don't like it. Look, what you're showing people there is the area

of the scrotum, right where it is housed.

You don't know what the scrotum is, what it contains.

It don't show up, though.

It does if you look hard, see. Look.

That's where they would dangle or hang from.

That is the private area.

I'm shutting my eyes.

He'll show them. He don't mind. He'll show them to anyone. He just brings them

in here, shows them as brazen as you like.

You're blimey. I can see what you mean, though. I mean, if you look hard enough,

you could imagine, because that's where they are, all right?

Because, you see, there's no bone in it.

Not in...

See, like, wouldn't show up, not without the skin.

But with the skin, you can see the shape.

That's where the privates are. That's the spot.

He's always got them out, admiring them ears.

He looks at them more than he looks at the telly now.

Oh, I think there's something wrong with a man who always wants to be showing

himself.

It's only X -ray, isn't it?

Maybe X -ray, but it's still exposing you. Look, look, it's my artificial hip.

Oh, it's not all artificial hip. There's still some of you there.

Listen, if it was my artificial whatever, I'd still want to retain my

Hang on, what's this?

This is your chest, Mr Garnett. Right.

Yeah. Has your doctor seen it?

Of course he has. He took them, didn't he? Well, I don't want to worry you, but

that's a very nasty mark there.

You see that there?

Very nasty, that is. Just there. Right where your lung is, I should think.

That shadow there.

It's a beer stain.

Spilt some Guinness on it the other night.

Can't go rusty, can it?

No, it's a special metal they use, isn't it, Mr Garnet?

Well, it is if you go private. I don't know what they use on the National

these days, not with all the cutback.

But anyway, you don't have to worry, do you? You're lucky.

Man your age, it won't be in there too long.

I don't know what the rough rate of metal is, but it should see you out.

keep it dry, keep out the damp.

Oh, no chance of him getting damp. He won't go near water.

I don't know why the council bothered putting a bath in for him, because he

never uses it.

I bath regular.

Christmas is regular, but it's only once a year. Now, what do you know what I

do? Um...

My Harry, he's got to have his dip done, Mr Garnet. He's making himself ill,

worrying about it, and I've told him there's nothing to worry about, is

didn't say I was worried about it. I said I'm not looking forward to it.

just being brave, because you're here.

But he is, he's worrying himself sick, and there's nothing to worry about, is

there, Mr Garnet?

No, no, no.

No, that's what I told him.

It's not your leg, is it?

Well, it won't be yours neither time they've finished with it.

They're not taking it off.

No, but they're not leaving it there, are they? Not as it is.

Oh, you've still got your leg. Yeah, to all appearances. But look, Harry, come

here. Oh, you're not starting on them again, are you? I'm just going to show

him. I'm sure he doesn't want to look at your x -ray. because he'll have his own

next life to look at soon.

Mrs Olingberry, I've been down the church and said a few prayers for you.

Well, you'll need more than prayers to go to hospital these days. Oh, blimey, I

had prayers.

Not for me, you didn't.

And it's Neil, you know, with all this worrying, and I keep telling him he's

lucky he can have it done.

Oh, yeah, well, you want to be lucky. I mean, any time you have to face up to

them people, put yourself in their hands, God's true, you want to be lucky.

I keep telling him it's only a small operation.

Who told you that?

Well... That's what we was led to believe.

I like your idea of small, Mrs. It's not a little penknife they're using, you

know. It's bloody great saws and hammers and chisels.

No, no.

It was minor.

Minor? Yes, minor. She knows more about it.

It's not a big operation, is it? That's what she means.

It's not what they call major. Well, it depends.

Depends on your point of view, my dear. It might only be minor to the surgeon

because he's not having it done to him, is he? I mean, to him, it's just a few

hours' work.

and chiselling away and a fair few quid at the end of it.

Don't bother the nurse, Eddie, because, I mean, you know, all she does is hand

him his tools as he asks for them. If she wasn't doing that, she'd be doing

something else.

It's all right for the family, you know, saying a few prayers down at church,

bringing a few grapes in, checking up what sort of insurance you might have.

But if you are the poor bugger, what's on the table, having your hip chiselled

off and dragged over your leg and another brand -new bit of metal, whack!

its place. It don't seem so bloody minor.

It was a miracle what they did to your leg.

Oh, yeah.

Don't know the meaning of a miracle, my dear. Oh, blimey.

The good Lord, he wouldn't have got far if he couldn't work better miracles than

that. Your if was a blessing from the Lord. Oh, yeah.

Because it's him that gives the doctors their gifts. Oh, did he?

Well, I wish you'd give him a tape measure and all.

so that in the midst of all their miracles, they can measure up and make

that the new bit of leg they're putting in is the right fit and not three inches

longer than the other one.

They make a cripple out of me, they have. Oh, I've got a limp everywhere.

If I want to walk even, I've got to stick one foot in the gutter.

Sorry.

He's worried about his window cleaning round.

Well, he can't find no -one to do it for him while he's in hospital.

Well, Mr Garnet's looking for a job, aren't you, Mr Garnet? There you are,

you are. I told you something would turn up. He's not too old, is he, Mr Carey?

Not if he can climb a ladder. Not I. Oh, well, dear, the film's finished, has

it? Oh, I turned it off.

It frightened the life out of me, sitting in the house on my own.

What film was you watching?

Creeping. It's the way he murdered his wife.

Yeah, now he's disposed of the remains.

There's another one who doesn't go along with divorce. Now you have to share

half your worldly wealth with your ex.

I don't know. It does seem a bit hard giving them half. I know.

But I often think it might be worth it just to get rid of them. Have you ever

thought of murdering your wife, Arthur?

Me?

Murderer?

I'd have to shove a stake through her heart, I think.

And I'm not too sure it'd work.

Now, I reckon the boot would be on the other foot.

I'd more likely finish up in a bath of acid.

Get off!

It's true. It's a fact, Ralph.

Listen, do you know, I let my dog have a taste of everything before I eat it.

I often wonder what it would actually be like to do a murder. You know, slow

poison, I think, I favour. I think you might be able to get away with that.

It's mostly men who get themselves poisoned.

There's more husband's poison than anyone knows.

That's your own fault, isn't it, if you don't beware women like that?

Women like what?

Poisoners? How are you to know she's a poisoner? Well, if you've got any sense,

you don't go around with that sort of woman, do you? Turpin's wife didn't know

he was a poisoner when they married him, did they?

Poop out, out, didn't they? Well, he must have looked all right to his wife.

For all we know, he probably loved his wife.

You're the funny way of showing it off, isn't he?

At least he did show it.

Human nature can be quite strange at times.

According to the film, he was very sweet to them.

Very kind and loving right up until the end.

And then... I like his style.

You know, it's not just hate that people kill for. It's gain.

I mean, Crippen probably didn't hate his wife.

Don't sound as if he liked them much, does he? Oh, he might have liked them

very, very much.

But he liked their money more.

I mean, a lot of women who poison their husbands don't do it because they

dislike them.

No, it's too inerrant.

Get on to their money.

You should be safe enough to know.

Oh, doesn't always have to be a lot of money.

Post office book.

That can be enough.

I ain't got a post office book, have I? So you say.

Lord, I've got nothing of mine that you don't know about. Mr Garnet. What? What

about it?

What about what, Harry? Do you want the job?

Well, I don't know. I mean...

Career move. You don't decide things on accident.

I'm sorry, it's urgent. I've got to find someone soon.

What's it pay, Harry?

60 -40.

Fair. It's a good round.

All right.

I'll do it.

Arthur, that job was offered to me.

Oh, so you'll do it then?

Well, anything to help out.

What do you like on anesthetics, Harry? Oh, no, don't.

run away with you.

Fred Johnson's not a murderer.

How can you tell? You said yourself.

Oh, you've got to be careful, I know.

I mean, she has to live alone in that house with him.

Well, where else do you expect her to live? They are married. Well, I wouldn't

like to live alone with him myself.

I mean, blimey, he's not normal.

You've seen his eyes. You can't go around being frightened of everyone.

I mean, I live alone in this house with you.

Yeah, but I'm different, aren't I? I mean, it's me. I'm normal.

I take precautions. I lock the door.

Oh, do you?

Yeah, well, until we're married, I think it's only proper.

Well, you're frightened, my dear.

You're frightened I'm going to come up there and do you in.

I never know what you might try and do when you're in one of your drunken

states. I mean, that's how murder gets done, I suppose.

Now who's letting imagination run away?

Listen, if I'd been married to Crippen, if I was one of his wives... And he

looked at me the way you look at me sometimes.

I think I'd have packed my bags. I'd have been off. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Would

Yeah. Oh, yeah?

Well, two can play that game, my dear, but I'll tell you something.

I'm going to go out there and hide that bottle of poison I bought for the mice

before I go to bed anyway.

How do you know it hasn't been used?

It's a joke.

Who said I was joking?

Look, I mean, I know you wouldn't do nothing silly, but I thought this

It had more in it.

Stop messing about.

It's time to stuff this.

It's poison.

All right, all right. We've all had our little laugh. No, I'm not laughing.

Look, that bottle's nearly full.

There's got to be explanation.

Eh? What?

Ow!

Oh, well, I'll go to bed.

Was the tea to your liking?

No. Sweet dreams.

We ain't got no mice. I got rid of it with this stuff.

She said she'd had hers earlier.

Oh, God.

Blimey.

There's nothing there.

But why? Why would she do it?

She's found my post office book. That's why, that bloody cow.

Or she's taken her insurance on me without me knowing it. That's what she's

done.

Oh, God.

I've got to get help.

999.

Nine, nine, nine. Come on, answer, answer. Come on.

Hello, hello, nine, nine, nine.

Send an ambulance round, I've been poisoned.

Where, where? To me, to me. Where do you think I'm going?

That is stupid.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

59 Mandela Road.

Mandela, Mandela.

We'll look you up in the 80s, Ed.

Come on, come on.

Of course it's there. It's an old street.

It used to be called Tinto Road, so the bloody daft council changed it.

Well, how long are you going to be... What do you mean, don't panic? I'm dying

of the poison.

You're what?

Mustard?

You're all right.

Honey, hurry up, for God's sake!

Oh, mustard.

Mustard.

Mustard.

We'll be right back.