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Abberline in the movies

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  • Mike Covell
    replied
    You might well get your wish when "Wolfman" is released later this year.

    Hugo Weaving is to play Detective Aberline (Only one B) who is in charge of finding a mysterious killer in a sleepy hamlet, who appears to be a Werewolf!

    Here is a quote from a recent review,

    When we first meet Hugo Weaving's character, we learn he had previously investigated "The Ripper," and is convinced the crimes he is now investigating are similar.


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  • Nothing to see
    replied
    Well, I guess I'm in the minority and I couldn't buy enough tickets to make a movie profitable. The truth so far as we know it is much more interesting than some of the stuff movie makers come up with. I thought Lewis Collins did an impressive job as Caine's sidekick - whatever happened to him, anyway? And Robbie Coltrane was equally good in 'From Hell'.

    But why is it the only story they want to tell is Knight's rubbish? I guess becase they figure it's the only one that would make money. Still, maybe one day, Fred will corner Jack in Flower and Dean St and knock him unconscious with his walking stick. In the movies, of course.

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  • Voyeur
    replied
    Originally posted by Nothing to see View Post
    Caine was very good (and enjoyable) because Caine is a very good actor. But Abberline was a Dorset man yet Caine, who can put on a toff accent (as in Zulu), played him with his own cockney accent. I suppose he was trying to make Fred sound like what people today would expect.

    Caine is a much better fit to me as Abberline than a certain J Depp. I think 'From Hell' is a far superior piece of work in costume, setting, props but the story is just an over the top bastar******** of Caines. Both based on Knight's doozy of a conspiracy.


    But why do they find it necessary to portray poor old Fred as an alcoholic and an opium addict? And Fred envisioning running off with MJK? What about his wife who was alive and kicking at the time? Things that make you go h'm.
    That's a good question. No doubt the filmakers love to add vices to lead characters like that, when it's not really necessary. And Caine can certainly lose the cockney accent if he's called upon to do so. Many of his famous roles (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Quiet American, etc) are non-cockney.

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  • Nothing to see
    replied
    Caine was very good (and enjoyable) because Caine is a very good actor. But Abberline was a Dorset man yet Caine, who can put on a toff accent (as in Zulu), played him with his own cockney accent. I suppose he was trying to make Fred sound like what people today would expect.

    Caine is a much better fit to me as Abberline than a certain J Depp. I think 'From Hell' is a far superior piece of work in costume, setting, props but the story is just an over the top bastar******** of Caines. Both based on Knight's doozy of a conspiracy.


    But why do they find it necessary to portray poor old Fred as an alcoholic and an opium addict? And Fred envisioning running off with MJK? What about his wife who was alive and kicking at the time? Things that make you go h'm.

    Leave a comment:


  • Voyeur
    replied
    Originally posted by kensei View Post
    I've seen Abberline portrayed in film by Michael Caine (who was probably the most perfect choice in the world at that time, though they should have had him grow the facial hair
    As a ridiculous fan of Michael Caine, I happen to know a story from Caine himself that he asked the director if he should grow a mustache for the role. And the director told him, he's getting paid a million dollars so audiences will see it's Michael Caine playing Abberline. So the director nixed the stache.

    Still Caine was awesome. Love the jail confession scene!

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  • fido
    replied
    Correcting an early post on this thread: "The Final Solution" was by Stephen Knight, not just Stephen, and was the most popular Ripper theory on the market at the time (Sir William Gull and the Freemasons covering uip PAV's secret marriage to Annie Elizabeth Crook).
    The really scandalous thing about the mini-series was a lot of false pre-publicity claiming that they producers had found new evidence and were offering a definite solution, which was being kept so secret that they had made several differen versions of the ending so that neither cast nor crew could give away which one was true.
    When they just came out with th familar theory and were called on their lying advertising, the studio blamed Wickes and Wickes blamed "an over-enthusiastic publicity department".
    All the best,
    Martin F

    Leave a comment:


  • Johnr
    replied
    Evening All,
    O.K. if a film is ham-strung by using a brilliant scriptwriter of previously successful formula T.V. cop shows, David Wickes, to guide the making of the Michael Caine version, I suppose the audience is stuck with the type-cast director/scriptwriter (Wickes) and the typecast leading actor (Caine).
    Their successful but predictable performances will boil down to whether you like those previous cop shows and/or if you liked Michael Caine in " Zulu "...etcetera.
    Given nobody in real life knew what the Ripper looked like, and nobody on these boards has ever seen a photo of Abberline , their appearance and behaviour was an open book for the studio to invent.
    Personally, I think the whole movie would have worked much better if they had cast Ronnie Corbett as Abberline, and Dianna Rigge as Jill the Ripper.
    I personally, loved The Sweeney.
    ( Which, after all, had a much more interesting cab driver in that show than the Michael Caine movie).
    I just hope our American cousins and Scandinavian cousins can catch the drift
    of what I am trying to say. JOHN RUFFELS.

    Leave a comment:


  • kensei
    replied
    Originally posted by Glenn Lauritz Andersson View Post
    I completely disagree.
    I got tired of Caine's screaming and over-acting alteady half-way through the film. I guess it's all a matter of personal preferences but the Abberline character that Caine plays in the film is a really intimidating guy and very unsympathetic and who seem to enjoy harrassing ordinary people, including witnesses - almsot on the border of being psychopathic. Definitely not someone I would like to have as a boss, even by 19th century standards.
    If you think Caine's portrait is 'balanced' then you must have flunk in psychology class.

    All the best
    Well, while recognizing that we're debating a mostly fictional portrayal rather than how the real Abberline would have been, and that I'm working completely from memory here, I guess I admit that Caine's Abberline did seem to be unnecessarily harsh with people like Lees and Mansfield, and especially with Lusk, but then the portrayal of Lusk was itself completely over the top and completely wrong. He was also constantly trading sarcastic barbs with the city cops like, "Warn me if you ever have an original thought, Spratling, I don't wanna die of shock." And at the Chapman crime scene, in answer to a question about where Godley was: "My sergeant is the only policeman in London not traipsing all over this bloody yard, that I do know!"

    But some other examples of him being reserved or even sympathetic come to mind, in no certain order--

    Again at Hanbury Street, he asks witness John Richardson "You ever use a knife?" but then when that makes the man nervous and defensive he simply waves him away with, "There are two detectives inside taking statements, give them yours."

    A couple of suspects are brought in, one of them John Pizer, and Abberline (working from a fictional theory that the Ripper is left-handed) gives them very quick and simple tests to see what what their dominant hand is and then cuts them loose without a second thought.

    A line of ne'er-do-wells who are always routinely brought in "whenever there's a murder" are brought in and offered soup for their troubles. Abberline laughs them off and says, "Give them the soup."

    Abberline tells Godley he can opt out of the case if he wants when the mention of royal involvement makes it politically charged. "Look, George, you have a family..."

    When invited to attend a meeting between Commissioner Warren and the Prime Minister himself, Abberline stands silent until the PM asks if he has everything he needs. "I could always do with more men, sir," are the only words he speaks in the entire meeting as far as I remember.

    One of the most striking moments in the whole film is Abberline and Godley emerging like zombies from Mary Kelly's room after viewing her body. Godley is in tears but Abberline looks simply stunned, momentarily defeated, completely at a loss, a good rendition I think of how most of the people who viewed that scene probably reacted.

    He does completely explode and rave at the top of his lungs at Dr. Ackland in the final scene after Gull is exposed as the Ripper (backed up for the moment by absolutely maniacal background music), but then I think his final line at the very end, spoken to Godley, is a very good example of balance, because the words are radical but they're spoken in a completely calm voice. "Then you should have let me shoot him."

    You're right Glenn, it is a matter of personal preferences and I admit I really love that movie despite its many flaws. Not trying to argue, just throwing out some personal observations.

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  • Sam Flynn
    replied
    Originally posted by Glenn Lauritz Andersson View Post
    I got tired of Caine's screaming and over-acting alteady half-way through the film.
    Glenn,

    I wouldn't be so harsh on Caine myself, since it strikes me that a lot of the character is implicit in the script - the sarcasm, the swagger, the self-assuredness, even the swearing. You can't deliver "I am NOT responsible for what they say in the papers!" or "You bastard!" like a village vicar.

    As I said earlier, David Wickes (scriptwriter and director of "JTR") worked on The Sweeney, and there's a hell of a lot of Jack Regan (played by John Thaw in the earlier TV series about the modern Flying Squad) written into Abberline's script. A look at the following excerpts from The Sweeney - only the first minute or so of each will do - for a flavour of where I'm coming from.

    Note how much Detective Inspr Regan (the splendid John Thaw) is a prototype "Abberline", and how the dialogue between him and his boss, Haskins, are basically identical to the Abberline/Arnold interchanges in the "JTR" mini-series:



    Or, bawling out another authority-figure in this one, with cool music:



    Regan's relationship with Detective Sgt Carter (Dennis Waterman) eerily foreshadows Caine's with Lewis Collins, as can be seen in abundance in this compilation, which starts with a classic line from John Thaw:



    Note, also, Regan's fondness for booze.
    Last edited by Sam Flynn; 05-24-2008, 12:58 PM.

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  • Glenn Lauritz Andersson
    replied
    Originally posted by kensei View Post
    I must disagree with the idea of Abberline being potrayed by Caine as "sadistic and psychotic." He got rough when he needed to, or when frustrated by what seemed to be roadblocks in his investigation. The scene where he beats up on John Netley in the jail cell is one of my favorites. Of course it was pure fiction and never really happened, but as pure escapism it totally rocked, and would have been expected if an accomplice of the Ripper had really been in custody. Then there were several moments such as the one where Chief Inspector Arnold was pressuring him to make an arrest and he snapped, "Do you want the killer or will anybody do?"

    But don't forget the moments of real compassion. When talking to the distraught Bowyer after the finding of Mary Kelly's body, Abberline comforts him. "All right, old son. It's all right." A moment later a weeping friend of Mary's cries on his shoulder.

    All in all I thought it was a very balanced performance within the context of such an emotionally charged situation.
    I completely disagree.
    I got tired of Caine's screaming and over-acting alteady half-way through the film. I guess it's all a matter of personal preferences but the Abberline character that Caine plays in the film is a really intimidating guy and very unsympathetic and who seem to enjoy harrassing ordinary people, including witnesses - almsot on the border of being psychopathic. Definitely not someone I would like to have as a boss, even by 19th century standards.
    If you think Caine's portrait is 'balanced' then you must have flunk in psychology class.

    All the best

    Leave a comment:


  • Paddy Goose
    replied
    Kapoozelum

    Originally posted by Observer View Post
    "Hooray for Hollywood" Bearing in mind the royal connection shouldn't this be "Hooray for Holyrood"
    What then of the Clarence book.

    I never could get it straight, was it a poem by Mr. Stephen, or an ancient drinking song, that dittie Kapoozelum?

    Paddy

    Leave a comment:


  • Mike Covell
    replied
    Here in Hull, which has recently featured on "Crap Towns", "Traffic Cops" and "Fergie goes to Fat Hull" or something like that, we call it "Hullywood"!

    We have some great locations for filming, if the film is about crime, drugs and prostitution!

    Wait a minute, "Ullywood" the "H" has been stolen for firewood on a local BBQ!

    Leave a comment:


  • Observer
    replied
    Hi

    isn't there a song

    "Hooray for Hollywood"

    Bearing in mind the royal connection shouldn't this be

    "Hooray for Holyrood"

    Observer
    Last edited by Observer; 05-23-2008, 05:14 PM.

    Leave a comment:


  • Sam Flynn
    replied
    Originally posted by Paddy Goose View Post
    It's a movie. Here we say "That's Hollywood." What would be the equivalent saying in the UK?
    "That's Cricklewood"?

    Don't think we've got an equivalent, really

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  • Mike Covell
    replied
    Erm, "Thats Hollywood" too!

    We have large studio's but nothing on the scale of Tinseltown!

    Leave a comment:

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