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David O'Flaherty
Detective Sergeant
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 93
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 8:29 pm: |       |
Ouch. It's been a year since I've seen the movie, but I don't remember Heather Graham being bad. I just think she takes a lot of flak because she's so pretty. Yeah, I hated the film, but I thought it was a great cast--Johnny Depp is one of the sharpest actors around, as is Ian Holm.
But what I really hate the directors for is wasting the talents of the late, magnificent Katrin Cartlidge (Dark Annie) in such a thankless role. Ugh.
Cheers,
Dave
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Michele Burford
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 11:15 am: | |
I saw From Hell last week, thought it was entertaining but wish it had been shot in Whitechapel and surrounds? As a Londoner I thought Johnny Depp's accent was terrible, but I suppose you had to be a Londoner to notice. My husband said that had he not watched it with me he would have probably not understood a lot of it a he is not that familiar with the case. |
John Savage
Detective Sergeant
Username: Johnsavage
Post Number: 54
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2003 - 7:13 pm: | |
Hi Michele
Inspector Abberline was born and raised in Dorset, so I think it more likely he had a Dorset accent than a London accent.
However I don't think it would have helped that wretched movie very much whatever accent Johnny Depp had used.
Regards,
John Savage |
Jeff Dean
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, July 11, 2003 - 9:24 pm: | |
Why, after all the work put into making the murder sites look as authentic as possible did the Hughes brothers get the furniture arrangement in Mary Kelly’s room so wrong? |
Kevin Braun
Sergeant
Username: Kbraun
Post Number: 48
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - 11:12 am: | |
Hi All,
I think that Johnny Depp is miscast as Inspector Abberline in 'From Hell'. When I heard that he was going to play a cockney pirate in his next movie, I thought no no no, another stretch. I was wrong, he is a very talented actor and he nails captain Jack Sparrow.
Last weekend I took my son and several of his ten year old friends to see 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl'. In recent weeks I struggled though 'Charlie's Angels', 'Terminator 3','Sinbad' and 'Finding Nemo'. I fell asleep watching the last three. Not so with Pirates. Johnny Depp's performance is twisted and very, very funny. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. He steals this entertaining yarn.
"God bless Johnny Depp.
As pirate Jack Sparrow, the mincing, mascaraed, swashbuckling antihero of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, a high-seas adventure based on a Disneyland thrill ride, the actor tries -- lordy, how he tries -- to keep his bilgewater-filled vessel afloat. He mugs, he leers, he cracks wise, all in a slurred cockney accent and effeminate, capering gait that makes his dreadlocked, gold-toothed character sound and look more like a drag queen on a two-day bender than a brazen buccaneer." (MICHAEL O’SULLIVAN,Washington Post)
The kids loved him.
Take care,
Kevin |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Detective Sergeant
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 107
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - 11:43 am: | |
Hi Kevin
Nice to find someone who agrees with my view that Johnny Depp was sadly miscast as Inspector Abberline in "From Hell" .
To believe that a wet behind the ears kid who looks for all the world like a teenager, could be the respected Abberline, would have required he stated out as a beat constable while in diapers.
My son loaned our DVD of "From Hell" to a friend who promptly lost it. I couldn't care less.
All The Best
Gary |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Detective Sergeant
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 110
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 - 3:31 pm: | |
P.S. I suppose a butt-ugly lead character wouldn't have drawn flies, but rather yawns from the ladies. Heather Graham may not have had the accent down, I seem to recall it wavering in places, but I din't mind watching her performance.
P.S.S. The actress who played long liz was shorter if I recall correctly than the other victims.
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Gary Alan Weatherhead
Detective Sergeant
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 120
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 12:11 pm: | |
Hello
Might I suggest Rowan Atkinson as Tony Blair who orders an investigation 115 years after the fact to determine if there is any validy to the various conspiracy theories.
Atkinson's movie is finally out today in the U.S. and I am very much looking forward to seeing it.
Best
Gary |
Kevin Braun
Sergeant
Username: Kbraun
Post Number: 49
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, July 20, 2003 - 5:01 pm: | |
Hi Gary,
You've got to give Depp a thumb up for taking a chance, testing his skills and maybe casting his fate to the wind. He may seen opportunity in this medium to low budget project. Great location, cutting edge directors'(?), household mystery. Short, handsome, talented, big name, fills seats at the multi-plex, Depp is sadly miscast in "From Hell".
I'm with you. Next movie "Johnny English".
Take care,
Kevin |
Neale Carter
Police Constable
Username: Ncarter
Post Number: 5
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, July 24, 2003 - 11:36 pm: | |
Although the narrative and many details in From Hell are hopelessly flawed, it does serve some purpose in helping to realise that these poor women were real flesh and blood not just figures in an academic exercise. It also dramatically portrayed the sort of florid psychosis and massive ego I think JtR probably must have had in order to commit these atrocities. He certainly wasn't Gull but the film did capture the dual nature of a personality - the plausible, seemingly normal man in public and the controlled, focussed fury and rage of the coherent psychotic. We can do worse than imagine each suspect against the behavioral "template" of Gull in this film. Although the apparent reasons and triggers for the personality switch will differ, the fact that JtR escaped detection at the time (and subsequently) means he must have at least resembled normality between murderous episodes.
Is Gull in From Hell a reasonable behavioural template for JtR or is this Jekyll / Hyde type personalty descriptor now debunked? |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 152
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Friday, July 25, 2003 - 3:31 am: | |
Hi Neale
I would say he remained acting and looking much like a normal individual right up until the time he drew his knife and went to work on these poor creatures. He had to inspire confidence in the woman until the moment they likely led him to the point where they wished to engage in whatever sex act they had agreed to perform.
With rare exceptions these killers appear on the surface to be normal, unexceptional men. How else could he convince a victim like a Kate Eddowes, who was an intelligent, reasonably sober woman at the time in question, to trust him at a time when all of the East End was frantic with fear.
The ridiculous thing is that Hollywood continues to insist on showing the public a geriatric with known infirmities to be the killer. But, it is the middle of the night here and I am probably not making any sense, so I'll sign off for now.
Best
Gary
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Neale Carter
Police Constable
Username: Ncarter
Post Number: 6
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 11:19 pm: | |
G'day Gary,
No, you make planty of sense. I can readily understand a killer "acting" inoffensively during the murder process (for want of a better term) in luring his victim, but I struggle to comprehend the abilty to maintain a semblance of normality between episodes. I have read of many more modern serial killers who have done just this so there must be either concious or unconcious techniques used to block out the killing impulse and its associated mania. Or is it more likely for JtR to have conducted these murders in any sort of cool, dispassionate, calculated way, ie. sociopath.
I know there has been extensive discussion both here and on the old boards re. psycological profiling. I dont want to revisit this but do want to explore how this guy escaped detection. There sheer bravado in committing at least 3 murders in public streets/laneways is breathtaking and a significant reason for the notoriety of this case. There are only a few possible explanations:
- luck
- incompetance by police/authorities
- conspiracy by police/authorities
- brilliant planning and execution by
perpetrator
I suppose the likelihood one attaches to these is influenced by (or influences) ones favoured suspect.
Neale |
Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 177
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 2:01 am: | |
Hi Neale
I don't have a favorite suspect. I believe JTR may have been a sailor, but my mind is open. Some people make up their minds and nothing can dissuade them, not even the facts that argue against their positions.
In my opinion JTR was more lucky than he was smart. I would not be suprised to find out that the police spoke to him during the investigation, but let him go, at least in part because he presented a normal facade and they felt that their man would show himself to be unbalanced. I would put JTR residing in or near the heart of his hunrting grounds and this is another reason I believe he was interviewed by the police.
I used to take a really harsh position against the police for being incompetent. I must have mellowed over the years because now I look at the police actions in light of the fact that they were dealing with a breed of killer they just didn't understand.
I believe Abberline and most of the police who were involved in the actual investigation were doing the best they were capable of at the time. I still, however, wouldn't be surprised if one or two officers were asleep at the switch when they should have been completing what must have been a mind numbingly repetitive beat.
Warren, Anderson and Henry Smith on the other hand provided leadership which would have made the Keystone Cops look good by comparison.
Conspiracies, as you mention them, are tough things to pull off from what I've seen. You need a number of people working together with a set objective, adequate leadership and the ability for everyone involved to all keep quiet for the remainder of their lives. If you've ever worked with a group of people on even a simple project you know how hard this can be for most human beings.
Thanks for asking my opinion.
All The Best
Gary
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Caroline Anne Morris
Inspector
Username: Caz
Post Number: 236
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 3:46 am: | |
Hi All,
I know I've said this before, but I don't think Jack needed too much luck or brilliant planning and execution to get away with it - not much more than your average punter of the time who used prostitutes and no one ever knew about it. Short of Jack causing a victim to scream out loud, or being caught in the act, knife and kidney in hand, blood all over him, there doesn't appear to be a very good reason why he should have come to any more public attention than the many other regular prostitute users. He only had to keep his cool and act like a regular customer at all times and in all respects apart from during their most private moments together, when he would be getting his jollies in a different way from other men.
Hi Gary,
I agree with you about conspiracies being tough to pull off and why they are so tough. They are very easy to imagine though, in any case where there are great big gaps where it would be nice to have evidence. This allows people to fill in the gaps with sometimes quite bizarre conspiracy theories, using the lack of evidence itself as evidence of crooked cover-ups! Worst of all are conspiracy theorists who actually argue against the known facts, or take no account of them, and then offer nothing by way of numbers of crooks involved, who led the bunch, what set objective they had, and how they managed to keep each other from spilling enough of the right sort of beans to give away the whole plot together with their identities. And such imaginative but unevidenced conspiracies can be far from the simple kind.
Love,
Caz
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Gary Alan Weatherhead
Inspector
Username: Garyw
Post Number: 178
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 5:35 am: | |
Hi Caz
You've hit upon what drives me crazy about most conspiracy theories I've come across. I'm not talking here about just JTR. The gaps are filled without evidence and then the lack of evidence and gaps in the story are foisted on the reader/listener as even greater evidence that a conspiracy is taking place. Then away we go, the person questioing the conspiracy can't win.
I think we've gone off the thread.
All The Best
Gary |
Neale Carter
Police Constable
Username: Ncarter
Post Number: 8
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2003 - 11:18 pm: | |
Gary and Caz,
Agree with most of your thoughts. Have moved discussion to suspects/general discussion thread.
Neale |
Glenn A
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2003 - 3:35 pm: | |
I just saw the movie yesterday (for the second time -- the first time was when it was released), and even though I, like the first time, was quite impressed by the locations and murder site scenes, the flaws of the story never cease to amaze me. I'm really dissapointed that Evans and Skinner took up the offer to participate as consulants in such a load of crap.
I must state, that Depp is an excellent actor, but as Abberline he's not credible at all; he's too young and too "dashy". And certainly too much weight was put on the character's addiction to Laudanum and his psychic gifts (do we have any real accounts saying there's any thruth in these two elements?), which makes the movie whimpsy and "airy-fairy". It's just pathetic.
Now, I don't want to be disrespectful against the americans, but I find it remarkable that everytime a movie about the Ripper is made in America, it must contain two important elements:
1. The ludicrous theory of the involvement of prince Albert and the freemasons.
2. A love story ŕ la Hollywood style (often between Abberline and Mary Kelly -- it's been done in another american Ripper film as well).
The latter I presume is to meet the taste of the american audience, but the Gull/royal/freemason story is obviously the only one that tends to lure the film-makers, in spite of it being a total fairy-tale and a hopeless myth. Unfortunately -- as I myself have discovered during my own locally based crime investigations -- conspiration theories seem to continue to gain public interest, and did even more so in the old days, when there was a great distrust among ordinary people against authorities and the police. But in most cases, these theories are completely out of touch with reality and constructions of mass-psychoses.
I agree with Jeff Dean above, who stated that Kelly's room was wrongly furnished, And if I'm not totally mistaken, the body was even turned the wrong way. Heather Graham was enjoyable to watch though. The actress playing Annie Chapman was a total mistake, however -- Chapman was much fatter and older and looking nothing like the actress at all.
Why can't people like the english Granada company try their hands on such a movie? For proof of their great sense of quality, I gladly refer to their renderings of Sherlock Holms (with the brilliant Jeremy Brett in the title role).
With this being said, I hope I didn't step on any american toes in what wrongly could be interpreted as disrespect.  That was absolutely not my intention -- I have the highest regard for americans as film-makers in general.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden
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Glenn A
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 8:29 pm: | |
Had to add a post in addition to my last one concerning From Hell.
Having just visited the marvellous website Hollywood Ripper Filmguide (thanks for the tip, you people on the board), I must correct myself. When I wrote "A love story ŕ la Hollywood style (often between Abberline and Mary Kelly -- it's been done in another american Ripper film as well)", I referred to the 1997 movie The Ripper with Patrick Bergin in the male leading role as the inspector -- he is not Abberline, though, and the female lead character is obviously not Mary Kelly (as I faintly remembered it) but another prostitute who is a witness to one of the Ripper murders and therefore in danger. (That's the obvious consequence of only relying on your memory and posting without doing thorough research -- sorry about that).
My point remains, though. Why is it necessary to construct a romance between the investigating officer and one of the "unfortunates" of Whitechapel? Is it at all a realistic scenario? Isn't the real elements of the Ripper murders interesting enough? I think it ought to be.
Regarding the royal conspiracy/freemason theme, I also discovered that there were more films produced on the Ripper concept than I imagined and I assume that not all of them is based on the theory in question (not even all the american ones), but all the same I find it quite remarkable -- in the light of what's happened during the last 5--10 years -- that an expensive Hollywood production rely on a theory that now seems totally out of date and antiquaric -- if not pathetic.
I would love to see the film-makers have the guts to base a Ripper movie on the "polish jew" theme or other suspect theories -- and without manipulating historical facts. That would be a real challenge!
Best regards
Glenn L Andersson
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Matt
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Friday, August 01, 2003 - 11:15 am: | |
I have a question. Did the killer really give his victims grapes as he is portrayed doing in the movie? |
Leanne Perry
Chief Inspector
Username: Leanne
Post Number: 558
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 01, 2003 - 5:32 pm: | |
G'day Matt,
NO!
Mathew Packer claimed to have sold Elizabeth Stride and a man half a pound of black grapes, prior to her murder. His description of the man matched a description that appeared in a newspaper.
Immediately after the crime, Mathew Packer was interviewed and told police that he saw nothing suspicious, so he was considered an unreliable witness.
Elizabeth Stride's autopsy revealed that she hadn't eaten any grapes.
I believe Packer was either after some of the recently announced reward money, or fame. That's how grapes got caught up in this case.
'From Hell' never claimed to be anything but fictional!
LEANNE |
Matt
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Saturday, August 02, 2003 - 12:46 pm: | |
What about the wine glass near Polly Nichols? Could it have been the laudanum that was given to the victims in the movie? |
Eric Smith
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Sunday, August 17, 2003 - 11:57 pm: | |
Hi all,
I have a few comments to make.
1. The love story theme between the cop and the prostitute I think plays into the American dream of a nobody becoming somebody. Alot of wealthy, powerful or famous Americans men do marry average people, whereas England has a history of the seperation of classes.
2. I just saw a 15 minute film on the making of From Hell. I had to laugh at the directors and actors commenting on how "accurate and truthful" the storyline was. Everytime they bring on a Ripperologist, the Ripperologist only comments on how great the sets are (which is true).
3. Someone in Hollywood needs to make a Ripper film that has a completely accurate storyline and doesn't cook up plots with speculation. There have been several movies made about other serial killers that are totally accurate (The Boston Strangler, The Hillside Stranglers, etc). |
Brian Lambert
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - 2:02 am: | |
To Glenn L. Andersson. I have never seen the movie "From Hell",nor have I been interested in this case at all. But intend to see it as soon as possible, and futher look into this case. In turn, this sparked an interest in this historic case for myself, as I am very interested in the history of Freemasonry. The consriracy/Freemason theory was introduced to me by a fellow Mason of mine. I applaud you on your faith that our great and honorable society was not envolved. Movie makers can capture the interest of people on subjects that would normally be of no interest to us whatever the mistakes in making the film may be. For instance, "Braveheart" portrays the story of William Wallace. Who is one of my favorite Masons in history. Would anyone, except fellow Masons or historians, know of the history of William Wallace if it wasn't for this movie? I think not. "Braveheart" portrays the honor and dedication to fellow Freemasons worldwide. Futhermore, I was not offended or disrespected by your words, but if you would be so kind as to capitalize the spelling of our country, and the great and honorable society that I hold dearly to my heart. I would love to hear from you Glenn, if you wish.(brl35@hotmail.com) Thank You, Brian. |
Andrew Spallek
Detective Sergeant
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 144
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 5:35 pm: | |
Finally got around to watching the film last night. As long as you remember that it is historical fiction, this is a good movie. The period scenes work for me!
Can't buy the "solution" or the characterization of Abberline, but it is fiction.
Andy
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Glenn L Andersson
Inspector
Username: Glenna
Post Number: 243
Registered: 8-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, September 13, 2003 - 7:48 pm: | |
I see what you mean, Andy,
I think there has to be limits to how wrong one should be aloud to display it -- I don't believe it's good for the case that this old myth still is hanging about and infects the Ripper investigation. I think it gives people a totally wrong conception about what the Jack the Ripper mystery was all about.
I don't care if a movie is fiction; when one is choosing to portray a real event, I think accuracy is extremely important, or else it does more harm than good. I belong to those who belive that "artistic freedom" should be restricted when one is making films based on real people and true reality. When one is filming a totally fictional story, on the other hand -- that is something completely different.
All the best
Glenn L Andersson
Crime historian, Sweden |
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