CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's television: The tragedy of the starlet killed during the blitz

The Blitz: Brittany on fire

Evaluation:

Confessions of a serial killer

Evaluation:

Last week, if you were awake at dawn and you were watching the Freeview Talking Pictures movie channel, you might have caught a jewel of the pre-war comedy called A Fire Has Been Arranged .

Bud Flanagan and Chesney Allen, two actresses of the music hall, played the role of a pair of unfortunate thieves of jewels and Mary Lawson, co-starred, in the role of the woman who beat them until the end. hidden booty.

Mary Lawson, do you remember her? Probably not … But as Michael Buerk has told in The Blitz: Brittany on fire (C5), she was a celebrity of the 30s, known for her love affairs – the motherless daughter of a terrace in Darlington, who had entrusted tennis superstar Fred Perry with the marriage of an aristocrat.

Michael Buerk and his co-presenters, Angellica Bell and Rob Bell, recounted Mary Lawson's fascinating story in The Blitz: Britain On Fire, but the details were confused when other stories were incorporated into l & # 39; together.

More shockingly, when she began an affair with Francis Beaumont, son of the Lord of Sark in the Channel Islands, he was married. His furious wife paid for a press notice announcing the divorce for "adultery with Miss Mary Lawson".

Imagine the gossip. And then, imagine, on the first night of Luftwaffe bombing in Liverpool in 1941, the wonder of families in a public air-raid shelter when they realized they were sharing their cramped quarters with Mary and her friend.

The couple, who had been married for almost three years now, visited Liverpool friends while Beaumont was at home on leave from the RAF. But a band of gold on her finger would not protect Mary from the whispers and contempt of people in the overcrowded shelter.

Poor Marie. She endured another night of embarrbadment burning in the shelter and, when the sirens sounded the third night, Beaumont and she decided to risk staying in their room.

It was a fatal mistake. After a direct hit in their home, the couple's bodies were removed from the rubble. Mary was only 30 years old.

Reporter Ben Zand investigated the case of multiple murderer Samuel Little in The Confessions of a Serial Killer, but it was a sadly superficial film

Their story was vividly told, with many film clips and photos to evoke the era, but it only suffered from one of the heartbreaking stories that unfold together.

Instead of following them from start to finish, Michael and his co-presenters, Angellica Bell and Rob Bell, continued to make an appointment to each other – the staff at the same time. besieged hospital; the captain fights a fire aboard his ship.

The stories continue tonight and tomorrow. With so many things, it becomes difficult to keep track of multiple threads. But perhaps this feeling of confusion, destruction and terror is the most accurate way to describe the Blitz.

In contrast, the story of Samuel Little was not complicated. Confessions of a serial killer (C4).

Although he was arrested dozens of times since the 1970s, for crimes that included rape and violent badault, he was able to travel to the southern United States for decades, murdering women. It is thought that he killed 93 victims, almost all black prostitutes.

This budget documentary, presented by Ben Zand, seemed impressed by claims that Little is the most prolific serial killer in US history. There were recordings of his trumpets recorded during interviews with the police, but he had not managed to talk to him in front of a camera. The best Zand could do was walk past the barbed wire in California State Prison and say, "He's here."

He spoke to former detectives, but let them go when they denied their inability to end the killings, was rooted in the racism and contempt of the dead women.

Filmed in an annoying style, with a lot of zoom, shake and blur, it was – as suggested by his off-putting title – a sadly superficial movie.