Made for British television, 2009’s The Execution of Gary Glitter opens with disgraced former rock star Gary Glitter (played by Scottish actor Hilton McRae) returning to the UK after serving a three-year prison sentence in Vietnam. When he was younger, Glitter was one of the most popular men in the UK, a rock star who was liked by both parents and — ahem — their children. His song “Rock and Roll Part 2,” with its chorus of “Hey!”, became a mainstay at sporting events. However, everything fell apart in the late ’90s when he was arrested and subsequently convicted of possessing child porn. After he was released from prison, Glitter went abroad and swore he would never return to Britain. In 2005, while living in Vietnam, he was convicted of having sex with underage girls. While he could have faced the firing squad as a result, he was instead given a three-year prison sentence. When he was released, he attempted to relocate to Hong Kong and Taiwan, only to be told that he was not welcome. Eventually, he had no choice but to return to the UK because every other country banned him from entering.
That’s all a matter of public record. The Execution of Gary Glitter imagines what would have happened if Glitter — or Paul Gadd, to use his real name — returned to a UK that had recently reinstated the death penalty. In this film, as soon as Gadd arrives in the UK, he’s placed under arrest. He’s been out of the country for so long that he totally missed the fact that Britain is once again hanging people. He’s also surprised to hear that he can be tried for crimes that were committed outside of British territory and that he can be executed if found guilty of the same crimes for which he was convicted in Vietnam.
The Execution of Gary Glitter is a mix of dramatic scenes and mockumentary-style interviews with people who were involved in Glitter’s criminal case. Though Gary Glitter is played by Hilton McRae, a few British journalists and politicians appear as themselves and talk about their feelings concerning the reinstatement of the death penalty. British MP Ann Widdecombe appears and makes the case for bringing back hanging. (Seventeen years after this special aired, Widdecombe would be brutally murdered in her own home, a victim of the political violence we’re always told isn’t actually occurring.) The film ends with a title card saying that, in 2009, polling showed that 53% of Britons supported bringing back capital punishment. It’s interesting how people always want the opposite of whatever it is they have. In America, the anti-death penalty movement is having a moment, but I can guarantee that, if capital punishment ever was outlawed here, you’d have people demanding that it be brought back within a month.
As for this film, it’s weird. Making a film like this about an actual person is weird. I honestly can’t tell you whether this film is for or against the death penalty. On the one hand, the scenes featuring the hangman and the gallows are rather cold and disturbing. The cold mercilessness of hanging is emphasized and with it, the idea that people who support the death penalty run the risk of becoming just as cold. (Of course, considering what’s currently happening in Tennessee as a result of the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike, some viewers would today undoubtedly appreciate the cool precision of a hanging.) On the other hand, Gary Glitter is about as unsympathetic a character as you can imagine and, in the film, he’s portrayed as being someone who lacks the self-awareness to understand why people are even upset at him. He makes plenty of excuses but they all ring hollow. At one point, the film mentions that Europe is uniformly condemning and sanctioning the UK for bringing back the death penalty. That would probably be a big deal in the UK. In America, we really don’t care what Europe thinks. Annoying Brussels is our national pastime.
What the film definitely does get right is the carnival atmosphere that would accompany the execution of a celebrity. The film imagines people selling T-shirts outside of the prison, macabre remixes of Glitter’s song playing on the radio, and Glitter himself receiving letters from people who continue to be fans despite the crimes for which he’s been convicted. Hilton McRae does a good job in the lead role. He starts out as arrogant and cocky and then gradually, as the reality of his situation dawns on him, he grows more and more desperate.
As for the real-life Gary Glitter, he was not amused by this film and tried to keep it from airing. Six years after the film aired, he was arrested and convicted of several more sex crimes that came to light as a result of the inquest into Jimmy Savile’s crimes. He was sentenced to a 16-year prison term. Just this year, the still-incarcerated Glitter was charged in a new set of historic sex crimes. He has pled not guilty.
