where do you stand?

[Scott Nelson]

All message boards need [sarcasm], [hyperbole], and a few other tags along those lines.

I've figured out your anti-anagram.

It's Vicky Haraha.

Right?

[RivkahChaya]

... English with a Swiss accent.

RE: the Jekyll & Hyde movies with obvious Ripper influence. While Miriam Hopkins, in the 1931 movie, did a good "Mockney" accent, as there really wasn't much way to put a woman with a US Southern accent (I think I said "Kentucky" earlier, for which I apologize-- I've been watching a lot of Irene Dunne movies in the past couple of days-- Miriam Hopkins is from the Deep South: Savannah) in the lowest places of the East End as a "fallen" woman, Ingrid Bergman plays the same role in the 1941 remake, and inexplicably attempts the same accent; it's awkward and awful, but what makes it worse is that there's no reason for a woman with a Swedish accent not to be living in the East End and working as a "bar maid."

The character is a prostitute in the 1931 version: the word isn't used, but it's quite obvious. In the 1941 version, the character is expressly a bar maid, because it was post-Hays' code.

It just occurred to me today that someone who had done a little research may have wanted to de-emphasize Bergman's Swedish origin, so as not to have anyone try to identify her with any specific [alleged] Ripper victim. The accent is so awful, though, that it doesn't work, and Bergman's English was so good, that in most of her films, her faint accent went unnoticed. Anyway, it wasn't as though Spencer Tracy or Lana Turner was attempting any sort of British accent.

[Observer]

Thanks Robert. A picture is worth a thousand words as they say!

Regards

Observer

[robert newell]

Observer--That was superb......

[Observer]

A bit of fun



Regards

Observer

[Mr Lucky]

I refer to Mrs. Long's purported sighting of Annie and the "foreign looking man."

Hi Lynn

Sorry, I'm still a little confused - has Mrs. Long mentioned a window?

Thanks in advance.

[Wickerman]

Interestingly, in terms of Jon’s point, for the early performances of Jekyll and Hyde at the Lyceum, Mansfield wore the same low-crown, wide-brimmed hat as both Jekyll and Hyde. By the 18th August, however, he had taken to wearing a silk chapeau as Jekyll; thus appropriately clothing his doctor in what would come to be seen as classic Ripper garb.

What a nice surprise, thankyou for clarifying the issue Alex.
Hope you are well...

Regards, Jon S.

[RivkahChaya]

All message boards need [sarcasm], [hyperbole], and a few other tags along those lines.

[Phil H]

I am sorry Caz, I meant to be wry rather than condescending.

Phil

[caz]

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised any more when I see this arse backwards reasoning.

And I will be the one accused of writing 'rot' for pointing out the bleedin' obvious: the killing did continue after Polly and Annie, which is perfectly in line with their killer being someone who was still at large to kill more.

Well, I won't say you're talking rot, just reciting the old conventional wisdom, as is your wont.

How very condescending of you Phil! I am not 'reciting' anything. My view of these murders may be similar to the conventional wisdom, in as much as I do see one man responsible for more than just two of the Whitechapel murders, but as I think you know very well, I don't go along with any conventional wisdom that has C5 and only C5, or any other specific victim numbers or names.

I will not rule out the killer of C1 and C2 from attacking any of the other victims, because there is no good evidence to do so. I have yet to see any good reason to clear this man of suspicion and put x number of complete unknowns in his place. Surely that makes me a lot less closed minded than those who argue - from sheer gut instinct and personal distaste for 'conventional wisdom' - that this man didn't, or couldn't have killed this or that victim. They toss out the conventional wisdom because it has failed to hand us a solution - as if that would be remotely odd in the circumstances - and they suppose that their new wisdom must serve us better.

My mind is open to all potentialities and possibilities.

Fine, then you don't come into the category of modern theorists whose minds are now permanently closed to anything and everything that even smacks of 'the old conventional wisdom'.

Love,

Caz
X

[RivkahChaya]

Sorry for deviating off topic but I felt RivkahChaya’s notes on Mansfield required some comment.

Thanks. I've never seen the play, and I know that the lighting effect is borrowed from the stage production only because I have an older book on special effects, as well as a DVD with commentary by a film historian, who both go into detail about it. But please read the whole post, because knowing that mistake has made me do some research, that's given me some new thoughts about some very early influences of JTR on popular culture.

When I was in high school, I read a play version, which I was under the impression was the same one that was produced in London, but apparently not.

The 1931 film version was based on the play, but what I apparently did not realize until I just now did some looking up, was that Thomas Sullivan, the author of the play, continued to revise it through the two decades that Richard Mansfield played the role, adding the love interest some time after 1888, and capitulating eventually to the fact that the twist ending of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde being the same person wasn't a secret.

So, if you pick up a new copy of the play by Thomas Sullivan, you won't be reading the script that Mansfield was performing in 1888. It will be the script he was performing during the last few years that he did the role, which ended with his death in 1907. The movie scripts (the 1931 movie, and also the 1941 MGM film, the 1920 Famous Players-Lasky film with John Barrymore, & two earlier, now lost US films; the also lost, and unauthorized, FW Murnau adaption, which has some elements of The Picture of Dorian Gray) all are based on the last version of the stage play, and not so much on the Stevenson novella itself.

[SPOILER] if I must: I only bring this up, because while the play closed for a while during the fall of 1888, in deference to real life, now that I have learned more about the history of the script, it almost appears as though Thomas Sullivan, the author of the play, reworked the Hyde character into less of what he was in the novella, and more of a "Jack the Ripper" character.

The 1920, 1931, & 1941 versions are all pretty easy to find, so anyone who hasn't seen them ought to give them a look.

Me, I'm now off to try to track down a copy of the script pre-Ripper, because it seems that early in the play's history, it was not about a very respectable and temperate man, who, when he transforms under the influence of his potion, goes into the poorer section of town, and torments women, finally fixating on a prostitute, who he feels he owns, to the point that he has a right to kill her to keep her to himself. But that was what it eventually became. If you have read the original novella, it doesn't concern the sexual appetite of Hyde, as he doesn't seem to have one-- he is little and shriveled, and the description is really of a person in poor health, not someone "lusty," which is what he becomes by the 1907 script, even if his face is ugly. It's worth noting that in the film versions, he's a man in a top hat and cape walking into East End bars. The play opened in Boston in 1887, so there have to be some old scripts floating around.

[caz]

@ Ben

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you.

I never said anything except "fairly well off." This would fit the maps. As for 'toffs" not being comfortable in the East End they went, didn't they to enjoy a lifestyle they didn't dare to do in their own locale.

The murderer did not need anything other than audacity to commit these murders. Take Bundy for an example. He was very good at convincing girls that he was harmless, or their friend, or injured. He killed and dumped bodies all over the USA, staying in some areas even after reports that could implicate him, such as descriptions of his volkswagon. He didn't even bother to change cars.

Serial killers have been stopped with bodies in the car and cheerfully bluffed their way through. Caught in out of the way areas, near where bodies were dumped, they manage to convince police that they have good reason to be there. Dahlmer was so convincing the police returned a victim that had escaped to him. The serial killer knows no bounds.

Again, Raven, a very good post.

I have never understood the argument that because the more feeble and squeamish among the thousands of "fairly well off", or "ever so slightly better off", or "respectably dressed" men, who lived or worked in or around the area might have avoided the murder streets at night like the plague, our vicious, knife-happy serial killer had to be from the other side of the tracks - dirt poor, shabby and virtually nailed to those streets by his circumstances (sounds painful).

The argument typically goes that everyone avoided the meanest streets if they didn't absolutely have to be there from economic necessity, so even a man armed with a lethally sharp knife and a warped sense of his entitlement to use it would have done the same, unless he was already stuck there day and night among the lowest of the low. So where does that leave the likes of Hutchinson, if he took himself all the way over to Romford to look for work, and was therefore as capable of leaving the meanest streets to the meanest people as anyone from the more "respectable" set?

Love,

Caz
X

[Jon Guy]

Is it any wonder he was talking loudly? After all, it must be very trying to get a sheep to understand English.

... English with a Swiss accent.

Good point, Observer :-)

[Steve S]

A thought that has occured to me recently is time variation...Let's take C5 as a basis...2 before 0200 and 3 after 0330..IF he was just wandering looking for victims,there's a gap...Take Liz out and variation is more.........Just musing......

[Observer]

Hello Mike.

"I think the killer of Polly and Annie falls under the category of Impulse driven"

Certainly looks that way to me. We have a chap who talks loudly outside someone's window--not too calculating.

Cheers.
LC

Is it any wonder he was talking loudly? After all, it must be very trying to get a sheep to understand English.