Shot on location in Leeds at the time of the search for the Yorkshire Ripper, this is an unusual film in the sense that it entertains, involves and gives food for serious thought all at the same time. It is also (from the perspective of 2011) an insightful and accurate snapshot of life in late 1970s Britain, describing as it does three very different stratas of society: a well off upper middle class family with brother number one, an army colonel, at its head; the radical, politically correct communal household of brother number two; and the harsh reality of those (both black and white, male and female) scraping together a living on the city's less salubrious streets or, as in the case of one of the two sisters of the title, as a nanny to the colonel's children. The plot revolves around events leading up to and following the murder of a prostitute (the nanny's sister) and cleverly interweaves an investigation into possible perpetrators (including the two politically polarised brothers) with a gradual unravelling of what happened on the night itself. As the original poster to the film put it 'One man killed her, but all men were guilty' and, in the course of the film, male attitudes to women - from the apparently correct to the palpably incorrect and abusive - are put under Woolley's microscope. A film that is highly recommended and available in a box set of Woolley's films issued by the British Film Institute and entitled 'An Unflinching Eye'. Get hold of it if you can.
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