In a TV interview clip shown early in Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, the famous DJ and Top of the Pops host is told that, while his biography Love Is an Uphill Thing features a collection of entertaining anecdotes, it never provides insight into his real off-camera self. As the world found out in the aftermath of his 2011 death—a mere two days before his 85th birthday—Savile most certainly had a private life, as well as good reason to keep it a secret: He was an apex predator, a serial pedophilic sex offender who abused hundreds upon hundreds of innocent children and young adults between 1955 and 2009. Worse still, he managed to shield that ugly side of himself via the very celebrity that afforded him his opportunities for monstrousness, aided by an establishment—be it the media, the public or the prime minister and royal family—that was all-too-willing to turn a blind eye to the sordid rumors that dogged him for decades.
Rowan Deacon’s Netflix documentary Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story (out now) offers up few bombshells regarding the reign of terror perpetrated by the British celebrity; U.S. viewers who are less familiar with Savile will glean more from it than U.K. audiences, who’ll likely find it to be a thorough recap rather than a shocking exposé. Split into two feature-length installments, it’s a thorough examination of the life and career of one of Britain’s most famous 20th century figures, a man who parlayed his numerous broadcasting triumphs into friendships with Margaret Thatcher and Prince Charles and Princess Diana, as well as reporters, police officers, and everyday folks who naturally gravitated to his warm, jovial, eccentric personality. To millions of fans, he was “our Jimmy,” a reputation furthered by his hit series Jim’ll Fix It, in which he made the dreams of young children (who wrote to him) come true on air.
On Jim’ll Fix It and Top of the Pops, Savile—recognizable by his mop of long bleach-white hair and trademark cigar—presented himself as equal parts court jester, Northern lad, roguish playboy, and Santa Claus. What truly endeared him to his homeland, however, was his passionate and seemingly altruistic interest in charitable work. Spearheading the fundraising campaign to repair Stoke Mandeville Hospital (and its acclaimed spinal injuries center), volunteering as a porter at Leeds General Infirmary, and overseeing the management of Broadmoor Hospital, home to dangerous and high-security psychiatric patients—this despite his total lack of medical expertise—Savile cultivated an image as a selfless do-gooder committed to giving back to those most in need. The result was a dual persona: a weird rock ‘n’ roll luminary who was also a Christ-like humanitarian.
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Savile’s philanthropic ventures were so successful and well-publicized that he quickly became a member of the cultural and political elite. Margaret Thatcher wrote letters to Queen Elizabeth on his behalf in order to secure him his knighthood (which he received in 1990), and Prince Charles routinely sought his council on a variety of royal affairs. Savile’s missives to both the heir to the throne and the prime minster make eye-opening appearances in Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, as Deacon constructs his portrait from an array of archival material that’s additionally punctuated by conversations with journalists, colleagues, and victims. Given that Savile spent most of his adult years standing before cameras, Deacon chooses to let his footage do the talking, all while employing apt edits and juxtapositions to suggest the genuine meaning behind Savile jokes—about forcing women to have sex with him, and about his impending prosecution (“My case comes up next Thursday”)—which at the time sounded far more harmless than they do today. Listening to him now, quotes like, “I’m a very tricky fella. If you are clever, you can slip up. You never slip up if you're tricky,” carry with them an ominous underlying connotation.
A habitual bachelor, Savile claimed that his on-the-move life prevented him from settling down. Nonetheless, he routinely expressed his fondness for women, and Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story highlights numerous speakers who admit that gossip about his unseemly proclivities (i.e. “he likes little girls”) were common throughout his career, and even occasionally found their way into print. Convincing accusers to go on the record, however, was difficult, and the handful who were brave enough to voice their experiences found scant receptive ears. It wasn’t until he passed away in 2011 that the dam finally began to crack, in part due to the dogged efforts of Meirion Jones, who as a kid had seen Savile behave inappropriately at his aunt’s Duncroft School (a detention center for female youths), and who as an adult journalist uncovered—through scouring social media sites—multiple reports of his horrific behavior.
Documentaries and newspaper investigations followed, laying bare a dreadful truth: Savile had obsessively preyed upon the weak and the vulnerable, including injured and unwell patients at the health care facilities where he worked. By 2016, more than 500 allegations of sexual abuse had been leveled at the entertainer, thus conclusively proving that the man so many had virtually welcomed into their homes was a repugnant fiend. Beginning by conveying the extent of Savile’s fame before peeling back the deceptive layers of that spotlight façade, Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story affords a precise chronological timeline of Savile’s ingratiation into the culture at large, and the means by which that celebrity insulated him from suspicion and criticism. Moreover, in the testimonial of Sam Brown, one of the Savile’s victims, it respectfully and sympathetically captures the depths of his ghastly misconduct.
What’s missing from Deacon’s non-fiction study, though, is an inquiry into the larger implications of Savile’s saga. While brief mention is made about the press, Crown and entertainment industry’s failures to expose Savile as a beast, there’s scarce censure of those systems for protecting their own out of expedient self-interest. Savile’s horrors serve as an indictment of a country that—at every level—cared more about not rocking the boat than about doing the right thing. Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story gets the context and details right, but in the final tally, seems unable—or unwilling—to draw the obvious conclusions from this nightmare.
