Rippercast- The Jack the Ripper Podcast

[Jeff Leahy]

Did they miss this one? (Haven't listened yet as I'm still on the one before). I saw that alone late one night, somewhat intoxicated on something herbal from memory, and it completely gave me the willies! Since I'd heard very little on the diary at that stage, and certainly heard nothing against it, I was fairly convinced at the time, and the bloke who did the diary voiceovers did a wonderfully creepy reading.

I've watched it several times since, including very recently, and it's a good watch - very entertaining, and of course featuring several notable Ripperologists. It was here that I first encountered the larger than life personality of Martin Fido, pack of Marlboros in his pocket, saying things like "Oh dear, oh dear, it's not good enough!"

Cheers,
B.

Tom Baker is a legend..the best 'Doctor Who', The best 'Little Britain' and the best legless Pirate

[Chris]

Re: The Farson program. As far as I'm aware Farson met Lady Abber Conway while interviewing her about her 'CATS' in an unrelated earlier program.

I looked into this a few years ago, and saw the production files for Farson's series at the British Film Institute, among other things.

There were two series of Farson's Guide to the British. The first was broadcast weekly from 2 July to 10 September 1959, and the second of 18 programmes started on 5 November and 12 November, with the two programmes on Jack the Ripper, entitled "The Wave of Terror" and "Curious Incident at the Tombstone". Farson says that originally there were intended to be three programmes (Jack the Ripper, p. 117).

During the first series (possibly in the first episode, "The London River") Farson broadcast an appeal for information about Jack the Ripper, having been shown "the Ripper's haunts" by Colin Wilson [Never a Normal Man, p. 267]. It was in response to that appeal that Farson apparently received the famous letter from Mr Knowles, which mentioned the mysterious publication, "The East End Murderer - I Knew Him".

Apparently Farson already knew Lady Rose McLaren. He says in his book on Jack the Ripper that he was staying with her in North Wales when he mentioned his research on the Ripper, and she remarked that it was a coincidence because they were going to visit her mother-in-law Lady Aberconway that afternoon. It was during that visit that she produced her copy of Macnaghten's memoranda. Farson's visit to Lady Rose may have been connected with one of the programmes in his first series, entitled "British and Gardens", in which she appeared (broadcast 13 August). Lady Aberconway later appeared in another episode entitled Cats" (broadcast 3 December). I believe the "Cats" episode (or at least part of it) still survives at the BFI.

I understand that copies of Farsons 'Jack the Ripper' program were made, as it was distributed abroad. If anyone is reading from Australia or Ripperroo, then that could be the best chance of digging up a copy.( I heard somewhere it has interveiws with relatives of Martha Tabram but I'm not certain if this is true?)

The second series was sold to the Australian Broadcasting Commission for broadcast between 1 July 1960 and 30 June 1965 from stations in or near Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart, but unfortunately the contract specified that the prints should be destroyed when the contract expired, and a certificate of destruction supplied. I suppose you can never be sure, though.

That's the only sale to a foreign broadcaster noted in the files. But it seems that they did sometimes supply copies of programmes for private viewing, so maybe there's a very slim chance that something has survived.

[BillyE]

Hi Jonathan, Philip, and Mike. Great show. With me it ranks right up there with the Docklands show. So much fun.

A few words I had on some of the subjects touched upon in the podcast:
I have seen some of the Barlow and Watt Jack the Ripper on YouTube, even had some saved to my favorites there, but almost as soon as they're up on YouTube they are pulled, I'm sure because of copyright laws.

It was my understanding Stephen Knight worked as a researcher for the Barlow and Watt program when he met Joseph Gorman "Sickert" which led to his book "Final Solution". I could be mistaken, but that was my take on what happened.

I do have the documentary on the second "From Hell" disk, and also the "Final Solution" on VHS, if you're interested.

Both "The Diary of Jack the Ripper" and "In Search of" with Leonard Nemoy are on YouTube, and are worth watching, if only for fun. I did enjoy the roundtable discussion on "Diary" with Martin Fido, Paul Begg, Donald Rumbelow, Colin Wilson, and other Ripper luminaries. The second version of "In Search of" was hosted by Mitch Pileggi, and was shown on American television on the Sci-Fi Channel. Every so often they'll replay the single season it had.


I have the A&E Biography "Jack the Ripper: Phantom of Death" on VHS, from I'm guessing the 90's. It has Stewart Evans talking about Tumblety, and one of my favorite authors Caleb Carr adding commentary. The intro and closing thoughts still feature Peter Graves on the copy I have.

The History Channel did two documentaries featuring JtR, one "The Hunt for Jack the Ripper" and the other about the famous cases of Scotland Yard. Can't place my finger on the title just yet. But both were hosted by Arthur Kent, and narrated by David Ackroyd.

I do have a copy of "Secrets of the Unknown" with Edward Mulhare that I have sandwiched between a copy of the Michael Caine mini-series and the movie Time After Time, both of which I now have on DVD. I remember it being at least 30 minutes, or so I thought. I'll have to see if I can find it again to watch and time.

The Travel Channel's program was called "Top Ten Places of Mystery" and the murder sites of JtR was the number one choice. The JtR segment only lasted about 10 minutes, and didn't go into any real detail of the case. Fun to watch, though.

The final thing I'd like to mention is the absence of mention of the 1967 James Mason walking tour of London called "The London Nobody Knows" featuring the back yard of No. 29 Hanbury Street.

Anyway, the show was great to listen to, and I did learn a lot. I'll be searching for some more documentaries now.

[Jeff Leahy]

I looked into this a few years ago, and saw the production files for Farson's series at the British Film Institute, among other things.

There were two series of Farson's Guide to the British. The first was broadcast weekly from 2 July to 10 September 1959, and the second of 18 programmes started on 5 November and 12 November, with the two programmes on Jack the Ripper, entitled "The Wave of Terror" and "Curious Incident at the Tombstone". Farson says that originally there were intended to be three programmes (Jack the Ripper, p. 117).

During the first series (possibly in the first episode, "The London River") Farson broadcast an appeal for information about Jack the Ripper, having been shown "the Ripper's haunts" by Colin Wilson [Never a Normal Man, p. 267]. It was in response to that appeal that Farson apparently received the famous letter from Mr Knowles, which mentioned the mysterious publication, "The East End Murderer - I Knew Him".

Apparently Farson already knew Lady Rose McLaren. He says in his book on Jack the Ripper that he was staying with her in North Wales when he mentioned his research on the Ripper, and she remarked that it was a coincidence because they were going to visit her mother-in-law Lady Aberconway that afternoon. It was during that visit that she produced her copy of Macnaghten's memoranda. Farson's visit to Lady Rose may have been connected with one of the programmes in his first series, entitled "British and Gardens", in which she appeared (broadcast 13 August). Lady Aberconway later appeared in another episode entitled Cats" (broadcast 3 December). I believe the "Cats" episode (or at least part of it) still survives at the BFI.

The second series was sold to the Australian Broadcasting Commission for broadcast between 1 July 1960 and 30 June 1965 from stations in or near Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart, but unfortunately the contract specified that the prints should be destroyed when the contract expired, and a certificate of destruction supplied. I suppose you can never be sure, though.

That's the only sale to a foreign broadcaster noted in the files. But it seems that they did sometimes supply copies of programmes for private viewing, so maybe there's a very slim chance that something has survived.

Many thanks for clarifying that information Chris. I didn't know about the distruction clause on the Australian copies..it would be quite a find if one still exists by the sound of it.

Do you know if any accurate script, running order, edit script or content break down of the progrm exists anywhere? which would indicate the exact content of the program's?

Many thanks for your time

Jeff

[jmenges]

For those just tuning in, the episodes currently missing from the RSS feed are:

2- Capturing the Victims with RJM

3- Final Cut w/ Justin Dombrowski

4- Sour Grapes w/ Dan Norder

5- The Barrister of Bright Talent w/ Andy Spallek

7- Tour Guide From Hell w/ Philip Hutchinson

9- Is the Solution at Hand? w/ Stan Russo

I'll try to get them reupped tomorrow.

The missing episodes in iTunes problem should now be fixed and all past shows available.

JM

[George Hutchinson]

The list of shows we covered was BY NO MEANS exhaustive, even with the knowledge at the time of making it. I think we left out the James Mason because it was only about 90 seconds and we all know about it.

I would have been happy to have spoken further about the Ustinov one, which is one of my favourites and I didn't even mention The Trial Of Jack The Ripper where the late, great Beadle managed to hoodwink everyone into agreeing it was Maybrick.

I do have the other Channel Four programme you speak of, Billy, and I too can't remember its name. Nor did we cover the superb Central TV show from 1988 on The Black Museum, showing the mortuary shots on TV for the first time. This was the programme that got me into true crime. Everything stems from there for me.

PHILIP

[BillyE]

...the superb Central TV show from 1988 on The Black Museum, showing the mortuary shots on TV for the first time. This was the programme that got me into true crime. Everything stems from there for me.

PHILIP

And grateful we should all be for this program, Philip for sparking your interest, and leading you to the work you do. I'll still look for the title of the History Channel's show about Scotland Yard. I see it advertised every so often, so you'd think I could remember it.

According to IMDb.com the "Secrets of the Unknown:Jack the Ripper" a 1989 production, had a run time of 28 minutes, so my 30 minute guess wasn't too far off the mark. At any rate it was remarkable in the fact of one of the commentators was Robert Bloch, who I don't remember being in any other JtR documentary.

[Jeff Leahy]

The list of shows we covered was BY NO MEANS exhaustive, even with the knowledge at the time of making it. I think we left out the James Mason because it was only about 90 seconds and we all know about it.

I would have been happy to have spoken further about the Ustinov one, which is one of my favourites and I didn't even mention The Trial Of Jack The Ripper where the late, great Beadle managed to hoodwink everyone into agreeing it was Maybrick.

I do have the other Channel Four programme you speak of, Billy, and I too can't remember its name. Nor did we cover the superb Central TV show from 1988 on The Black Museum, showing the mortuary shots on TV for the first time. This was the programme that got me into true crime. Everything stems from there for me.

PHILIP

Sounds like the start of a new book called "Jack the Ripper A to TV"

[Bailey]

A word or three about Alan Moore

Hey Rippercast fans

Driving home from work today I was listening to last week's podcast on Jack in the movies, and as a bit of a comics geek, I just wanted to clear the air on behalf of comics / graphic novel writer Mr Alan Moore, who came up in the conversation about From Hell, which was based upon Mr Moore's excellent graphic novel.

There was some talk about his disparaging of the film adaptions of his work, which was then followed by observations that he had no qualms about taking money for them. Mr Moore has in fact refused to accept payment for any film adaptations of his work for some time. His attitude is that he would prefer they not be made, when they are made they're generally not very good, but if they are made, he wants nothing to do with them. He accepts no payment, nor does he get credited - the credit generally goes to the artist who worked on the books (Moore just writes). I believe this dates back to the atrocious film version of The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which Moore was justifiable disgusted by.

I'm sure none of the Rippercasters meant to cast aspersions on Mr Moore, nor am I casting aspersions on them, simply sharing the knowledge, folks!

Cheers,
Bailey

(Edited moments later...) But I just checked my copy of From Hell on DVD and I see that Mr Moore is credited on the cover there, so perhaps it was that one rather than LXG that was the final straw. I know he wasn't credited or paid for V For Vendetta, or the upcoming Watchmen - which looks awesome from the trailer!).

[BillyE]

Philip, I finally found the title to the second History Channel documentary about JtR. They had the "Hunt for Jack the Ripper" then had, around the same time "Scotland Yard's Greatest Investigations." It started with the Ripper case, then went on to others, which escape me now. I knew "Scotland Yard" was part of the title, and I just kept plugging away on IMDb till I found it. They don't give a air date for "Hunt for..." but the date for "Scotland Yard..." is 1999. Maybe this will help you track it down. Good luck with finding it.

[George Hutchinson]

Hi Billy.

Yep, that's the one! I have a copy; I just don't know which video it's on. I know it's written on the spine but I've got hundreds and hundreds of videos, a lot stored at my parents' house.

I think both the Crippen and Haigh cases followed JTR.

PHILIP

[Bailey]

It was a great show (as always!) tho rather frustrating to hear about all this interesting stuff that's out there which I can't get hold of! Even stuff that might be worthy of scorn like the two Cornwell docos that were mentioned, I'd like to see at least, even if only to declare it bollocks and never watch it again. Some of the other stuff, such as the legendary Barlow & Watt, To Kill & Kill Again, etc, sound really good, so I can only hope they show up somewhere better than Youtube.

I would like to thank the guys for pointing out that The Final Solution is hidden on disc 2 of From Hell - my sad old ex-rental VHS copy is no longer required! Hadn't watched it for a few years so sat through it last night and was delighted with the assignment of morgue photos of Eddowes to everyone but Eddowes! A good watch otherwise, despite being overly melodramatic.

And in a final note, I doubt this is news to a lot of folks, but I was just checking out the extras on the Burton version of Sweeney Tood - there's a doco there on the history of the character, and as I was thinking that so many of the penny dreadfuls and whatnot were reminiscent of the likes of the Illustrated Police news Ripper reports, they brought Jack into the show for a few minutes, including a few comments from Donald Rumbelow.

Cheers,
B.

[BillyE]

I'm afraid I have bad news for people wanting to see the "Final Solution" on the second disk of the movie "From Hell". The entire documentary is not on disk two, but two or three short snippets from the documentary interspersed with a documentary the producers made featuring Donald Rumbelow doing a voice over talking about the victims, and suspects, and Stewart Evans showing his picture collection, and making comments about the case as well.

The format is at pivital sections of the documentary you'll see a pinkish/red magnifying glass in the lower right hand corner of the screen, and using your remote control you click it and see a section of "Final Solution". Then you go back to the little doc featuring Rumbelow and Evans again. I just didn't want anyone buying the two disk "From Hell" expecting to see the full "Final Solution" documentary, and being disappointed. Sorry to burst any bubbles.

[George Hutchinson]

^ That's a bummer. I have a pirate VHS copy, so I didn't know that.

Bailey - most of these are available for sale on DVD for a few pounds each on eBay.

PHILIP

[Bailey]

I'm afraid I have bad news for people wanting to see the "Final Solution" on the second disk of the movie "From Hell". The entire documentary is not on disk two, but two or three short snippets from the documentary interspersed with a documentary the producers made featuring Donald Rumbelow doing a voice over talking about the victims, and suspects, and Stewart Evans showing his picture collection, and making comments about the case as well.

The format is at pivital sections of the documentary you'll see a pinkish/red magnifying glass in the lower right hand corner of the screen, and using your remote control you click it and see a section of "Final Solution". Then you go back to the little doc featuring Rumbelow and Evans again. I just didn't want anyone buying the two disk "From Hell" expecting to see the full "Final Solution" documentary, and being disappointed. Sorry to burst any bubbles.

Hey Billye

The snippets of the doco are presented as you describe, but the full 40 minute version is there as an "Easter Egg" or hidden feature. In the menu on disc 2, go to the bottom item "Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Fonder," then press down and then right on your remote. This will highlight one of the knives in the case which makes up the menu's background. Select this and the doco starts.

Note that I'm referring to the R1 2 disc SE, so I guess this may be missing from other versions.

Cheers,
Bailey