Royals Caused Princess Diana's Death, 'Killing' Doc Says (Exclusive)

Royals Caused Princess Diana's Death, 'Killing' Doc Says (Exclusive)

Published: May 02, 2011 @ 3:57 pm
Print this page
By Steve Pond

William and Kate have yet to announce when and where they'll take their official royal honeymoon, but they might want to stay away from the South of France in mid-May.

Princess Diana and Dodi Al-FayedThat's when an inflammatory, potentially explosive new documentary will show up at Cannes, where it will screen in the marketplace, not the film festival, and make the following charges:

>> Diana Spencer, the former Princess of Wales, and her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed were deliberately killed in an auto accident in Paris in 1997, most likely at the behest of the British royal family.

>> The deaths were ordered because the royals were worried that she and Al-Fayed would marry and have children, giving Prince William, her oldest son and the future King of England, a Muslim stepfather and half-sibling.

Diana's Mercedes>> Or maybe they were ordered by the British (and French, and American) secret services, because of her attention-getting crusade against land mines.

>> Diana knew her life was in danger, but her warnings to that effect were concealed by British officials in the aftermath of her death.

>> In fact, the official inquiry into the deaths was a wholesale cover-up on the part of the British government, with the acquiescence of the British press.

>> Prince Philip was a Nazi sympathizer and a rampant philanderer, and is a psychopath to boot.

>> And the British monarchy ought to be abolished, anyway.

TheWrap got a sneak peek at the film, which was made under the title "There Are Dark Forces" but is now titled "Unlawful Killing." Made by actor/director Keith Allen (the father of singer Lily Allen), the film can likely never be shown in Great Britain, according to its director, who has said that British lawyers determined 87 changes that would need to be made before it could screen in the U.K.

When Allen first started talking about it at Cannes three years ago, where he screened a 20-minute excerpt, he was calling it the antidote to "The Queen." Now he says it's the antidote to "The King's Speech" in the way it casts a net of suspicion on the royal family, and on all aspects of the official British inquiry into the deaths. This even though it endorses the jury's conclusion that the death was an "unlawful killing" caused by vehicles following the car in which Diana and Al-Fayed rode.

(The film points out that British press immediately wrote that the "following vehicles" were driven by the paparazzi, when the jury did not say who was in control of those cars and motorcycles.)

"The British establishment," Allen insists in a voiceover, "think that they have gotten away with murder."

The film's persuasiveness likely depends on a viewer's willingness to embrace that all-enveloping air of suspicion. It's a time-honored approach: if you persuade viewers that the official inquiries are part of a massive cover-up, then you don't need to worry if many of the other charges you make have been debunked by those inquiries (which in this case includes the British Operation Paget).

Tags: British royal family, cannes film festival, Dodi Al-Fayed, Kate Middleton, Keith Allen, Movies, Prince william, Princess Diana, Unlawful Killing
Sign Up For First Take

Get Our Daily Email, and Receive Invitations to Our Screenings Series

Start your day with all of the news worth knowing

What's First Take?

Description

Steve Pond, author of the L.A. Times bestseller The Big Show, has been covering entertainment for more than two decades. He also writes on the awards circuit for TheWrap, in his column "The Odds."

Subscribe to Steve Pond
Most Popular
Columns
Wrap Tweets