Americans in London.
It’s been a month of Jack the Ripper texts on Murder Made Fiction podcast and while the quality has been consistent, the approach to arguably one of the most famous unsolved murders in true crime history has varied widely.
Naturally made-for-TV movies like 1997’s The Ripper (listen here) and the Michael Caine-led Jack The Ripper miniseries from 1988 (listen here) have been a bit more sedate, while Alfred Hitchcock’s 1927 silent film The Lodger (listen here) and Hugo Fregonese’s 1953 Man in the Attic (listen here) were “classier” affairs.
We left our most contemporary, big budgeted, big screen adaptation for last and boy, do the Hughes Brothers lean into the gore! While From Hell isn’t on par with the wave of Torture Porn titles that would come out of Hollywood only a few years later, compared to every other Jack the Ripper text, this one is quite a bit more salacious.
In the film, Detective Frederick Abberline (Johnny Depp) is assigned to the case of the Whitechapel murders. A killer is targeting a specific group of sex workers, lead by Heather Graham‘s Mary Kelly (and her terrible wig!). The deaths appear to be tied to the inner circle of people who know about the marriage and out of wedlock birth of a baby with ties to Prince Albert Victor (Mark Dexter).
Over time it’s revealed that a shadowy cabal, the Freemasons, are actively working behind the scenes to manipulate events in favour of the monarchy, leaving Abberline and his partner Sergeant Peter Godley (Robbie Coltrane) to go up against Queen Victoria’s royal physician, Sir William Gull (Ian Holm – fantastic) and his lackey, coach driver Netley (Jason Flemyng), who will stop at nothing to keep the truth hidden.
Can Abberline protect Mary Kelly? Will the Freemasons and Queen Vic throw Sir William under the bus? And how many people will end up lobotomized by the end of the 2+ hour film?
Listen to find out!
Want even more Murder Made Fiction? Be sure to check out the pod’s Patreon feed, where Jenn and I have 140 hours of content including episode by episode coverage of S01 of AMC’s The Terror and, starting in April, coverage of nuclear disasters like HBO’s miniseries, Chernobyl.
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