List of Ripper movies

[BillyE]

I'm still compiling a list of Ripper movies. I've got most of them, but I'm sure there are some I've missed. Once I'm satisfied I'll post the list here.

[sdreid]

Hi Billy,

I'll look forward to seeing that list. I think I have about 30 that I call "serious Ripper films". There's a lot of room to make decisions on what to include and exclude.

[Mike Covell]

I find there are two very valuble sites for research into Ripper movies,

Hollywood Ripper splits the films into decades, has plot outlines, analysis, and cast and crew lists.
The site also features "Ripper imitators" films that might have some random connection to the case.
It is the largest, and in my eyes best Ripper Movie Archive.

Internet Movie DataBase (IMDB) is also a valuble source of information, this has pretty much the same content but if you are a registered user (its free) you can debate elements of the film.
The site also contains pictures, cast and crew info, bloopers, and links to other ripper rekated films.
It also contains documentaries.

Failing that look through the "Audio Visual Threads" on this site for the Jack the Ripper Podcast, last week we discussed the Ripper Movies.

Good luck

Mike

[Mayerling]

Hi Billy,

Do you include films that have characters that are sort of "clones" of the Ripper - even if their methods are not the same?

There is a funny comedy with Michael Caine, John Mills, Ralph Richardson,
Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and Tony Han**** called THE WRONG BOX which is loosely based on an 1888 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson and his step-son
Lloyd Osbourne. In the film Richardson plays a talkative bore, and in hiding from Cook and Moore on a railway car bungles into a compartment with a mysterious man who is knitting and being very silent. The man had a newspaper that Richardson is soon looking over, and it reports another killing by "the Bournemouth Strangler". As he talks on and on about unsolved murders, our knitter looks at him sharply on the side of his head. We eventually realize (while Richardson does not) that this silent man is the "Bournemouth Strangler". This killer's demise plays an important role in the events of the film that follows.

If you include television episodes, one of the episodes of THE AVENGERS where Patrick Macnee is teamed with the actress playing Tara King (after Diane Rigg left the series) deals with "The Gaslight Ghoul" Club which studies the career of the 1888 "Gaslight Ghoul" killer in the East End of London.

Linda Thornton - she played Tara King.

Jeff

[detective abberline]

Ripper media

If you include TV shows, "Star Trek" the original series has an episode called "Wolf in the Fold". Not bad.

Cheers

[kensei]

Yeah, that Star Trek episode is memorable. I went on the Donald Rumbelow Ripper walking tour in 2004 and he mentioned it in his wrap-up speech while standing at the former Miller's Court. "Even Captain Kirk of Starship Enterprise has taken on the Ripper," or something like that. It got a big laugh from the crowd.

[Mike Covell]

The Ripper made a small appearance in the Jackie Chan movie "Shanghai Knights", the scene involves Chan's Charector's Sister to be accosted by the ripper, she then kicks his ass into some sort of river.

Coincidently the film was shot on the set created for "From Hell"

Mike

[BillyE]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am including tv shows, but not including movies that have the Ripper as an afterthought, such as "Shanghai Knights" and "Amazon Women on the Moon". Only stories featuring JtR as a main character, or main plot device. I have included Star Trek, but didn't know about the episode of "The Avengers". I'll read up on that, and most likely include it in the list. Thanks for the heads up.

[sdreid]

Hi Billy,

What about films that are inspired by the case but where the killer is not actually called Jack the Ripper, such as Hitchcock's The Lodger?

[BillyE]

As many versions of "The Lodger" as I can find will definately be included. I love the Hitchcock version!

[Magpie]

I hope you won't omit that oft-neglected classic "What The Swedish Butler Saw"

[BillyE]

Well, now you all have done it! Now I'm making a second list of films and tv shows using the Ripper as a secondary plot device. Ohhhh me and my lists! Anyway, I am almost done and will be posting both lists soon.

[Mayerling]

Hi Billy,

In looking over my writings on the IMDb movie website, I found another "Ripper Clone" type film - again it depends how far afield you are going. The movie (with John Loder) THE BRIGHTON STRANGLER about an actor playing the role of an infamous uncaught murderer in a play (who in the course of the film picks up the bad habit of his character). Like THE WRONG BOX's "Bournemouth Strangler" it is suggestive of the Ripper's reputation more than his/her actual method.

Closer to home is the television western series CIMMERON STRIP, which had an episode dominated by the Ripper. Stuart Whitman was the star of this short lived western series. In the episode Whitman is leading a wagon train and several murders occur. Keep in mind the settlement of Oklahoma really got underway in 1889 (the year of the famous "Oklahoma Land Rush"), so after the second murder occurs one of the wagon train (an English reporter) says that the hideous mutilations suggest that Jack the Ripper is on the wagon train. Whitman keeps trying to find the Ripper, and gradually narrows his focus unto one man.

SPOILER AHEAD:

The episode ends with that man (who is guilty of the wagon train murders, and may have been the Ripper) meeting a kind of just deserts: one of his victims was a local Indian tribe girl, and her people are not unwilling to use methods taught to them by the white men.


Best wishes,

Jeff

[Mayerling]

Cimmeron Strip episode.

I was just checking IMDb. The 1968 episode of CIMMERON STRIP was called
"Knife In The Darkness" and was written by Harlan Ellison (which explains the rather perfection in the time, place and setting - and some other details he included). Tom Skerritt was in the episode, by the way. I was wrong about the wagon train (it's been a long time since I saw it), but it was set in the town where Stuart Whiteman is the Marshall.

[BillyE]

Thanks, Mayerling. I had included "Cimarron Strip" in my list, but not the "The Brighton Strangler", so I'll read up on it and likely include it. Thanks for letting me know about it.