Well, just as I’m about the start writing on Michael Emerson’s third creepy character (Max von Sydow in Hour of the Wolf), and Emerson goes and gets himself nominated for an Emmy!
His reaction to the nomination is just priceless!
Here is Ben’s reaction to Alex’s murder in “The Shape of Things To Come” (the episode that got everybody buzzing about Emerson’s Emmy chances):
Congratulations, Mr. Emerson! The nomination is well-earned!
This is just a quick update. I will be a guest on this week’s Rippercast podcast, which tapes tomorrow. This is the podcast for all things Jack the Ripper. We’ll discuss Jack the Ripper movies, of course!
Also, the next creepy character installment is finished. I’ll post it as soon as it publishes on Blogcritics.
Yesterday, I published the first installment of “Michael Emerson’s 5 Creepiest Characters of All Time.” I just want everyone to know that I plan to publish the other four installments within the next couple of weeks.
Right now, I’m waiting for that little red envelope to bring Emerson’s next favorite creepy performance to my doorstep.
Since I’m taking the movies in the order Emerson lists them, you can see for yourself just what’s in that little red envelope. It’s not a performance I would have thought of. But then, I don’t ever have to look for inspiration on how to play creepy…
I’ll have the envelope tomorrow. Should be fun!
I just transferred Hollywood Ripper to a new host and have been in the process of converting it to WordPress. I seem to have gotten my style settings and internal links and header working properly. But there’s still more work to do—like adding a few more titles to the filmguide pages. Please be patient while I update the site. Thanks!
—Cindy Collins Smith (a.k.a. RipperLady)
Okay, they’re not literally from the Jurassic period. But they are pretty early! And I mean earlier than anything I’ve dug up for Hollywood Ripper thus far.
The other day, I noticed that I was getting a number of hits from one of the Forum pages on the astounding Casebook: Jack the Ripper site. This happens from time to time when a particularly hot discussion is going on over there about Ripper movies. So I followed the link and found a far more intriguing discussion than I had imagined.
One researcher had found a reference to a 1914 Mexican film named “Destripador” (i.e. “Ripper”). That prompted Casebook Editor, Stephen Ryder, to provide info on several early Ripper titles he’d found via the Library of Congress.
I don’t know who this will interest, but it sure interested me! So here’s a link to a fabulous discussion involving Ripper (and possible Ripper) titles from before 1910… and even a turn-of-the-century look at Whitechapel.
Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Message Boards: 1914 Film
Oh, and while you’re over there, please check out the Casebook’s Mission Statement. It will be worth your time.
Thank you , Stephen, for remembering what the search for Jack the Ripper is truly about. And thanks, Casebook, for making the Ripper Lady’s work easy today!
Wow. What a weekend. We had a lot of fun hearing the stories of the celebrity guests–who included Carol Cleveland of Monty Python, American actress Beverly Washburn, and well-known British film, television and stage actor, Francis Matthews. They were all real sweethearts.
My husband and I had the pleasure of driving Mr. Matthews from the airport in Northern Virginia to the hotel on the northside of Baltimore, during the evening rush hour in Washington, DC. It was a long trip, but it was made easier by our delightful guest, who regaled us with stories (and voices) of Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Boris Karloff, and others. He even did Captain Scarlet for us (for whom he provided the voice… using his “silly Cary Grant imitation” as he puts it). And all this after a 9 hour flight from London! We spent much of the trip laughing hysterically.
I won’t go into tremendous detail about the convention, except to mention that there were great films, panels, Q&As, and repartee with our writer, actor, and filmmaker friends.
And now for the big news… I discovered a Japanese Jack the Ripper film! I found it in the catalog of a dealer I’ve known for about 7 years. The day after I spotted it in the catalog, I went to the dealer’s table and asked about the movie. Unbelievably he actually had it with him! (Well, perhaps NOT so unbelievably. He knows that the “Ripper Lady” will come to his table each year and buy a movie from him).
Naturally, I bought it. I’ll watch it in the next couple of days and write about it for the next installment of the blog. That movie got me to realize that there are yet entire continents to be mined for versions of the Ripper tale. Has Bollywood done a Ripper movie? Has Hong Kong? Has Manila? Latin America? the non-English majority of Europe?
Most visitors to Hollywood Ripper come from the English-speaking world of the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. But we’ve also had about 600 unique visitors from non-English-speaking countries in Western Europe; over 100 from all over Asia (39 from Japan alone); about 60 from Latin America (largely from Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico); and over 50 unique visitors from countries that once were “behind the Iron Curtain.”
Obviously there’s a vast potential market for Jack the Ripper movies outside the English-speaking world. Now that I’ve run across my first Asian Ripper movie, I’ll be keeping my eyes open for more Ripper films from Asia and other places that I did not previously suspect.
Well, I’m going to be at the Fanex Convention in Baltimore from Thursday till Monday. It’s going to be fun, so if you’re in the Mid-Atlantic region, you might want to come out and check it out.
I’ll be serving on panels discussing movies that deal with Satanism, Loss of Identity, Monster Rallies, and even Musicals. Curiously, several of these topics have implications for Jack the Ripper cinema and television… though that’s not how I’ll be approaching them at the convention.
Musicals: Well, the panel I’m on will be talking about the weirdest musical numbers we’ve ever seen on film. We’ve already talked amongst ourselves and have come up with a pretty impressive bunch of bizarre musical numbers… including “The Devil’s Cabaret.” If there were a Ripper screen musical, I’m sure we’d be showing a clip from it. But you know, even though no Ripper musical has ever made it to the screen, there have been Ripper musicals on stage. In fact, one will be opening in London in 2004. The theme song from the musical is pretty twisted (and is incorporated into the Flash intro for the website). So you might want to check it out!
Satanism: There are at least a couple of Ripper stories on the screen that place the Ripper in occult alliances with the forces of darkness. In “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper,” an investigator discovers that the Ripper’s murders are actually blood sacrifices, and that the locations for the murders form patterns that have meaning in the world of the occult. The Ripper’s purpose? To maintain eternal life. (In this story, it’s already the 1960s, so the Ripper seems to be doing a pretty good job at maintaining his objective). In Ripper Man, the killer (who believes he is the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper) just simply would like to be one of the forces of darkness. And of course, there are some Ripperologists who maintain that the Ripper himself was a Satanist.
Loss of Identity: We’re going to talk about what a scary theme this is, and point to movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. How does this apply to Jack the Ripper? Well, for the Ripper, obviously, total anonymity was necessary in order to commit butchery with impunity. The fact that the Ripper has remained anonymous, though, is just not psychologically tenable for the culture at large. The Ripper has no known identity—and therefore the case has no closure. We lack two things that humans desperately need: a sense of order, a sense of justice. That’s my theory for why some people actually dedicate their lives and financial resources to giving the Ripper an identity.
For some Ripperologists, the Ripper’s identity is merely a parlor game. But the more dedicated and rigorous students of the case, I think, are often on a quest to right a historical wrong. The blood of the murdered women of Whitechapel screams out to them, and they hope to bring the Ripper out of the fog into which he slipped, and into the light.
In the very disturbing movies we will be discussing, people are stripped of their identity against their will. The Ripper willingly stripped himself of identity… but that fact itself remains disturbing enough that over a century later, we still seek to give him one.
New York Ripper is not a Jack the Ripper film. It’s not even about a Ripper copycat (though Jack the Ripper—JtR for short) IS mentioned at one point during the investigation. This film is what I call a “Faux Ripper” movie (i.e. a film which uses “Ripper” in one of its titles—generally for marketing reasons—but which is not about JtR). This film uses “Ripper” in its original Italian title, and in all English versions.
At any rate, this film is an Italian giallo film, by ultraviolent filmmaker Lucio Fulci. The killer in this movie is extremely sadistic (in the film’s most famous scene, he slits a woman’s eyeball with a razor), and he taunts the NYPD by phoning them up and speaking in a duck-quack voice.
Though this film fits into the giallo subgenre of Italian horror, it is not really representative of gialli as a whole. The giallo subgenre generally combines murder mystery, high body count, variety of killing styles, dazzling cinematography, and the ultimate unraveling of the mystery… kind of like Halloween (part ONE!) and Friday the 13th (part ONE!)–though neither of those movies has the high cinematic style of the typical giallo.
FYI: gialli are pretty violent films. BUT in New York Ripper Lucio Fulci goes beyond the violence of the standard giallo film… particularly the gialli by filmmakers like Mario Bava and Dario Argento. That’s partly why I’m saying it’s not really a representative giallo. But in addition, it has a much more gritty look than any Bava or Argento giallo would. If you watch Bava’s Blood and Black Lace or Argento’s Deep Red—and then watch New York Ripper—you’ll quickly understand what I mean.
The ultraviolence in Fulci’s film is not really surprising, given that one of the script writers also contributed to the script of Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust… a movie so extreme that many people thought it was a snuff film. Actually, you could say it was so extreme that it got banned in ITALY!!! (I believe that it’s still banned to this day in the U.S.).
Despite its ultraviolence (and the fact that it’s not about Jack the Ripper), New York Ripper is well-made, presents an interesting mystery, and really explores the seedy side of New York. But this film is not recommended for anybody who does not have a very strong stomach or who does not want to watch extreme screen violence. I’m saying that as a critic who has seen the film for professional reasons, but who does not generally watch movies THIS violent for pleasure.
So consider yourselves warned! :-)
Resources:
Giallo (Wikipedia)—Encyclopedia overview of giallo.
Mario Bava, “Bava Speaks”—What the “creator” of giallo says about his work.
Dario Argento, Dark Dreams—A UK website devoted to the work of Dario Argento
Lucio Fulci, Official Lucio Fulci Website—includes a useful bio
The Star newspaper wrote on the day after the first canonical Ripper murder (and the third appalling murder in Whitechapel):
Nothing so appalling, so devilish, so inhuman—or, rather, non-human—as the three Whitechapel crimes has ever happened outside the pages of Poe or DeQuincey.
If only the Star knew what was yet to come—increasingly brutal mutilations committed against victims found on the streets of London, after which the killer would slip off into the night without a trace.
How could he possibly be human?
At the end of September, 1888, police found two victims in one night. The second one was more severely mutilated than any previous victim. And not long after that, the first Ripper ghost story got published. Actually, it was the first piece of any type of fiction written about the Ripper. An excerpt:
The men were almost dead with fear. What was yon cloud? Why did it not move? The tempest seemed to gather round it, the lightning struck at it a dozen times. It slowly lifts and utters a hollow, dreadful laugh. Is it ghost or fiend? It seems diminishing in size. Horror! It assumes the shape of a man! What is it that it holds aloft? Again the lightning struck at it, and its ghastly head was seen.
Another crash of thunder, and a naked arm appears, holding a blood-stained dagger. Oh, what is it that it strikes with such a demon fury? Why that final, dreadful cry?
Think about it. The first guy to write a fictional story went straight for the supernatural. And why not? Nobody knew who the Ripper was, what he looked like, why he left no trace. You could tell just about any story about him that you wanted!
Last night, I asked why the films inspired by Ed Gein always have a thoroughly human killer, while movies inspired by the Ripper can do anything they want with him.
Well, I think the answer is pretty obvious.
Gein committed his deeds in private. Nobody knew about them until a fresh body was found in his shed. Once that body was found, everybody knew. There was no mystery about who the killer was. The only question was how many other “disappearances” in the area might have been murders.
The Ripper, on the other hand, left plenty of public evidence about his crimes. The women were found on the street—either killed there or dumped. The crimes created panic in the East End. When the crimes remained unsolved, the chief of Scotland Yard had to resign, the Home Secretary nearly lost his office, and the panic threatened to turn riotous and possibly even bring down the British government. There was nothing private about the Ripper’s doings. But the case was never solved. (Maybe we’ll talk about Patricia Cornwell someday).
When you’ve got a mystery killer, he can be anybody or anyTHING. He can be a ghost, or an immaterial entity that travels the galaxy feeding off fear, or an occultist who has prolonged his natural life by performing strange blood rituals. Those are just a few variations, and they have all been done. In the past 7 years, in fact, there have been two Ripper movies dealing with the subject of reincarnation: Ripper Man and Hell’s Gate.
Jack is great fodder for science fiction and the supernatural. After all, nobody alive really knows what happened. Nobody alive was there.
regarding blondes, psychics and abberline’s
crutch (part 1)
I had the opportunity to appear this week on Episode 22 of Rippercast, a wonderful podcast for all things related to Jack the Ripper. This week host Jonathan Menges and a panel of Ripperologists took some time to discuss Ripper movies with me. What fun! It was an international Skype call (first time I ever used Skype), with participants spread out from Kansas to England.
The name of the episode is “Blondes, Psychics and Abberline’s Crutch.” I’d link to it, but the Rippercast site is experiencing technical difficulties. It’s also available on iTunes for easy download, which is how I got my copy.
Y’know, when you listen to an actor on one of those DVD commentary tracks, you’ll frequently hear comments like “Oh, they shot the wrong side of my profile” or “My nose is way too big.” (we’re all so vain).
For me, listening to this episode is kind of like that. I’m thinking: “Whoa, I sound like I’m talking over him, cutting him off. I hope they didn’t all think I’m rude.” Or… “Well, that was a missed opportunity. I could have mentioned…” Anyway, just thought I’d provide a little elaboration on some of those missed opportunities.
#1 Jonathan asks me what my favorite Ripper movie is, and I come out of the gate with the apparently controversial 1988 production with Michael Caine. So let me clarify what I meant when I said that it “tells the case the way it really was.”
First, I think that serious students of the case (let’s call them “investigative Ripperologists” for short) and serious students of the movies (that would be me!) can have different perspectives on what makes a good Ripper film… or even what constitutes “verisimilitude” in a film about the Whitechapel murders.
I have seen, well, just about all the movies listed on this site. A significant percentage of them (90%? 80%?) are highly fanciful. So… along comes the 1988 Jack the Ripper, and the film is set in the real world (not in outer space or in some parallel supernaturalized universe or in some sanitized London). It does a very realistic job of recreating the 1888 East End. It names the real victims, gets the modus operandi correct, includes numerous well-known incidents from the investigation into the case. It shows the potential for social unrest. Heck it even gets down to showing the weird Richard Mansfield wrinkle. Most Ripper movies don’t even try to name the real victims, much less use the killer’s authentic modus operandi, much less try to recreate the East End!
“Abberline’s crutch” (part of the title Jonathan gave to this Rippercast episode) does highlight a potential point of contention between the traditional investigative Ripperologist and a student of film—i.e. the portrayal of Abberline, chief investigator on the case. I did a doubletake, sure, when I first saw him portrayed as a drunk. But I’ve seen movies that portray the victims as glamor girls and the Ripper as a supernatural monster who transcends time! So portraying Abberline as having a crutch (in this case, an alcohol addiction) did not register very high on my “egregiously unrealistic” meter… though I guess it certainly registered for Abberline’s family. For me, none of that hurts my enjoyment of the movie, given Michael Caine’s wonderful performance and all. But it is enough to get an investigative Ripperologist fuming!
Nothing wrong with that. We’re just looking for different things. He’s looking for absolute accuracy while I’m giving the film marks not only for being an excellently crafted, well-acted production but also for happening to be the most accurate non-documentary film on the killings that I know of. 100% accurate? No. Most accurate? Yes.
So, if you’re an investigative Ripperologist who’s shocked by what I said about the movie, just remember that I come at the films from a movie angle (i.e., do they make good cinema?). “Most accurate” Ripper movie is good enough for me! “Well acted” Ripper movie is good enough for me. Heck, even “supremely entertaining though preposterous” Ripper movie is good enough for me. (Hey, I like Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.. and yes, I do know better!).
So, that’s where I’m coming from when I list the 1988 MIchael Caine movie as one of my favorites.