Rippercast- The Jack the Ripper Podcast

[jmenges]

Episode #24 is online

Hi All,

Episode 24- A Portrait of Francis Tumblety with special guest Tim Riordan, is now online.

Tim joined me for nearly 2 hours discussing not only his discovery of the only photograph yet to surface of Dr. Tumblety, but all of the highlights and low-lights of Tumblety's life and times.

I dare say that this show contains more information about the good doctor in one place than anywhere else, until Tim Riordan publishes his biography of Francis Tumblety. Which event will hopefully occur soon!

Joining me briefly at the beginning of this episode was Ally Ryder, and I'd like to thank Ally and Tim Riordan, of course, for making this another must-listen-to episode!

www.rippernet.com / iTunes Music Store kw: Jack the Ripper

Enjoy!



JM

[Sam Flynn]

I've been wondering what's happened to Howard...

...some of us have wondered that for years

[BillyE]

I've been wondering what's happened to Howard. Hope he's been okay. It'll be good to hear him on the show again.

[jmenges]

Hi all,

To fill in that lost weekend I'll go ahead and announce that 24 August will be a show about the murder of Mary Ann Nichols. No special guest for this episode as of yet, unless you count the return of Howard Brown to the show...which I do.

It's that time of year again...

Thanks for listening,



JM

[jmenges]

Podcast on brief summer hiatus

Hi all,

FYI-

You may have noticed no podcast last weekend. We'll be off this weekend as well, but will return on August 17 with a great show featuring special guest Tim Riordan, who recently unearthed the only known photograph of Francis Tumblety.

Robert McLaughlin will be back in the saddle for this episode as well.

And coming up on August 31st is special guest Fiona Rule, author of the upcoming book The Worst Street in London, a history of Dorset Street.

So no, we're not off the air, and will be coming back soon with a slate of excellent shows and very special guests.

Stay tuned and thanks for listening,



JM

[Bailey]

Hi, Bailey. I put in disk two of "From Hell" and followed your instructions to find the easter egg, and after a few attempts, sure enough, there was the entire "Jack the Ripper:The Final Solution" documentary just as you said. Thank you for pointing this out to me. And to think I waisted the time and money ebaying the VHS of "Final Solution". Oh well, live and learn. Thanks again for enlightening me, and us all on possibly the most valuable part of the two disk "From Hell" edition. We all knew the most valuable part wasn't the movie.

It is a little tricky to find -I had to jump around a bit to get a result myself.

As for the value of the rest of the set... Well, I'm a movie buff as well as a Ripper buff, and I think that if Ripperism is set aside it's a pretty good watch. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but an entertaining period thriller, and if nothing else, visually superb. If Ripperism is NOT set aside, however, it's certainly sorely lacking.

Worst case scenario... Looking at Heather Graham for a couple of hours... I can think of worse fates.

Cheers,
B.

[BillyE]

Hi, Bailey. I put in disk two of "From Hell" and followed your instructions to find the easter egg, and after a few attempts, sure enough, there was the entire "Jack the Ripper:The Final Solution" documentary just as you said. Thank you for pointing this out to me. And to think I waisted the time and money ebaying the VHS of "Final Solution". Oh well, live and learn. Thanks again for enlightening me, and us all on possibly the most valuable part of the two disk "From Hell" edition. We all knew the most valuable part wasn't the movie.

[Bailey]

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

PHILIP

Hmmm. I shall have to have a look, tho I'm always skeptical about what you're going to end up with when you buy dodgy piratey stuff. Still, often better than nothing!

B.

PS Your dang book is still AWOL! I'm starting to doubt it exists! But Amazon have offered apologies and sent out a second copy at no charge, so who knows, I may end up with two

[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

[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

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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!).