The Brides in the Bath

Last updated

The Brides in the Bath
The Brides in the Bath ITV.jpg
Screenplay by Glenn Chandler
Directed by Harry Bradbeer
Starring Martin Kemp
Tracey Wilkinson
Charlotte Randle
Emma Ferguson
Theme music composerRichard Taylor
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
Production
ProducersDavid Reynolds
Alan Dossor
CinematographyRobin Vidgeon
EditorDavid Aspinall
Running time120 minutes
Production company Yorkshire Television
Original release
Network ITV
Release
  • 31 December 2003 (2003-12-31)

The Brides in the Bath is a 2003 television film by Yorkshire Television for ITV, based on the life and trial of British serial killer and bigamist George Joseph Smith, the "Brides in the Bath Murderer". Martin Kemp plays the role of Smith, and Richard Griffiths plays barrister Sir Edward Marshall-Hall. The film was directed by Harry Bradbeer, and written by Glenn Chandler. [1] [2]

Contents

Production

Set to portray coastal Weymouth, filming took place in Yorkshire locations of Bridlington, Filey and Scarborough from June to mid-July, 2003. [3] Bradford City Hall in Bradford, doubled for the court room and holding cells of the Old Bailey in the City of London. [4] [5] [6]

Plot

The film focuses on the trial of George Smith and flashbacks showing how he met each of his wives. Smith is married to his wife Edith. He often goes away on the pretext of business. Whilst he is away he meets wealthy women, marries them within a few weeks, insures their lives and then drowns them in the bath. He returns with the insurance money (sometimes he brings the latest victims' possessions to Edith as gifts). He is eventually arrested and ultimately hanged for his crimes. At the trial it is revealed that his marriage to Edith is bigamous; in total he had eight wives, most of whom he left after stealing all of their possessions. [7]

Cast

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saltaire</span> Village in West Yorkshire, England

Saltaire is a Victorian model village in Shipley, West Yorkshire, England, situated between the River Aire, the railway, and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Salt's Mill and the houses were built by Titus Salt between 1851 and 1871 to allow his workers to live in better conditions than the slums of Bradford. The mill ceased production in 1986, and was converted into a multifunctional location with an art gallery, restaurants, and the headquarters of a technology company. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and on the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keighley</span> Market town and civil parish in West Yorkshire, England

Keighley is a market town and a civil parish in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Science and Media Museum</span> Part of the national Science Museum Group in the UK

The National Science and Media Museum, located in Bradford, West Yorkshire, is part of the national Science Museum Group in the UK. The museum has seven floors of galleries with permanent exhibitions focusing on photography, television, animation, videogaming, the Internet and the scientific principles behind light and colour. It also hosts temporary exhibitions and maintains a collection of 3.5 million pieces in its research facility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Sutcliffe</span> English serial killer (1946–2020)

Peter William Sutcliffe, also known as Peter Coonan, was an English serial killer who was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. He was dubbed in press reports as the Yorkshire Ripper, an allusion to the Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper. He was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. Two of Sutcliffe's murders took place in Manchester; all the others were in West Yorkshire. Criminal psychologist David Holmes characterised Sutcliffe as being an "extremely callous, sexually sadistic serial killer."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Spilsbury</span> British pathologist (1877–1947)

Sir Bernard Henry Spilsbury was a British pathologist. His cases include Hawley Crippen, the Seddon case, the Major Armstrong poisoning, the "Brides in the Bath" murders by George Joseph Smith, the Crumbles murders, the Podmore case, the Sidney Harry Fox matricide, the Vera Page case, and the murder trials of Louis Voisin, Jean-Pierre Vaquier, Norman Thorne, Donald Merrett, Alfred Rouse, Elvira Barney, Toni Mancini, and Gordon Cummins. Spilsbury's courtroom appearances became legendary for his demeanour of effortless dominance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Joseph Smith</span> Serial killer in the UK

George Joseph Smith was an English serial killer and bigamist who was convicted and subsequently hanged for the murders of three women in 1915. The case became known as the Brides in the Bath Murders. As well as being widely reported in the media, it was significant in the history of forensic pathology and detection. It was also one of the first cases in which striking similarities between connected crimes were used to prove guilt, a technique used in subsequent prosecutions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bradford Bulls</span> English rugby league football club

The Bradford Bulls are a professional rugby league club in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, and compete in the Championship, the second tier of British rugby league.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cartwright Hall</span> Art gallery in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England

Cartwright Hall is the civic art gallery in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, situated about a mile from the city centre in the Manningham district. It was built on the former site of Manningham Hall using a gift of £40,000 donated by Samuel Lister and it is named after Edmund Cartwright. The gallery which opened in 1904 initially had a display of artworks loaned from other galleries and private collections until it was able to purchase a permanent collection of Victorian and Edwardian works using money raised by the 1904 Bradford Exhibition.

<i>Wives and Daughters</i> (1999 TV series) British television miniseries

Wives and Daughters is a 1999 four-part BBC serial adapted from the 1864 novel Wives and Daughters: An Everyday Story by Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St George's Hall, Bradford</span> Concert hall in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England

St George's Hall is a strategic grade II* listed Victorian building located in the centre of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. Originally designed with a seating capacity of 3,500, the hall seats up to 1,335 people and 1,550 for standing concerts. It is one of the oldest concert halls still in use in the United Kingdom. German Jewish wool merchants who had moved to Bradford because of its textile industry, partly financed the building of St George's Hall, and were instrumental in its construction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cottingley, Bradford</span> Village in West Yorkshire, England

Cottingley is a suburban village within the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England between Shipley and Bingley. It is known for the Cottingley Fairies, which appeared in a series of photographs taken there during the early 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bradford Playhouse</span> Theatre and former cinema in Bradford, England

The Bradford Playhouse is a 266-seat proscenium arch theatre with circle and stall seating based in Little Germany, in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. Formerly known as The Priestley, the theatre also has a studio space that has flexible lighting, sound and seating arrangements.

Clayton Rugby League Football Club is an amateur rugby league club in Clayton, West Yorkshire, currently competing in the Pennine League. Clayton play at Lidget Green Cricket Club's ground in a home kit of striped burgundy and amber; their away kit is blue. The club has several teams including those for under-16s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bradford</span> City in West Yorkshire, England

Bradford is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the 1974 reform, the city status has belonged to the larger City of Bradford metropolitan borough. It had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 census; the second-largest subdivision of the West Yorkshire Built-up Area after Leeds, which is approximately 9 miles (14 km) to the east. The borough had a population of 546,976, making it the 9th most populous district in England.

The Bradford murders were the serial killings of three women in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England in 2009 and 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Travers Humphreys</span>

Sir Richard Somers Travers Christmas Humphreys was a noted British barrister and judge who, during a sixty-year legal career, was involved in the cases of Oscar Wilde and the murderers Hawley Harvey Crippen, George Joseph Smith and John George Haigh, the 'Acid Bath Murderer', among many others.

<i>Scrambled Wives</i> 1921 film by Edward H. Griffith

Scrambled Wives is a lost 1921 American silent comedy film produced by and starring Marguerite Clark. It was directed by Edward H. Griffith and released through Associated First National. This film had one color sequence, presumably a 1-strip Technicolor process being that Technicolor's Ray June is one of the cameramen. This film marks Clark's final screen performance. It is not known whether the film currently survives. This film is based on the play The First Mrs. Chiverick by Adelaide Matthews.

Natalie Gavin is an English actress from Bradford, known for her roles in the BBC dramas Prisoners' Wives and The Syndicate, and the ITV drama Jericho.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Carol Wilkinson</span> 1977 murder case in England

The murder of Carol Wilkinson was committed on 10 October 1977 in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Anthony Steel spent 19 years in prison for the murder under wrongful conviction, and was acquitted in 2003. Due to poor health, he died shortly after in 2007 at the age of 52.

This article details the Bradford Bulls rugby league football club's 2020 season. This is the Bulls second season in the Championship after narrowly missing out on the playoffs in the previous season.

References

  1. 1 2 "The Brides in the Bath". BFI Collections. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  2. Lavery, Mark (31 December 2003). "A Role to Die For". Yorkshire Evening Post. Archived from the original on 18 June 2015. Retrieved 19 September 2014.
  3. "Filming in Old Town". Bridlington Free Press . 29 May 2003. Archived from the original on 7 August 2016. Retrieved 12 September 2014.
  4. "EastEnders' villain filming in City Hall". Bradford Telegraph and Argus. 27 June 2003. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  5. Clayton, Emma (20 March 2014). "Tour Bradford's movie hot spots through the eyes of location director". Bradford Telegraph and Argus. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  6. "City Hall makes killing with soap murder trial". The Yorkshire Post. 7 April 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  7. "Brides in the Bath". Radio Times. 4 March 2016. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 4 March 2016.