What is the most historically accurate Jack The Ripper picture?

[Defective Detective]

Obviously 'accuracy' is in the eye of the beholder, given that the vast majority of Ripper films seem to be either 1) some variant of or combination between the Royal and Masonic Conspiracies and (2) the "modern-day Ripper", either with the Ripper traveling time to arrive in the present day (of the film) or some descendant following in their ancestor's footsteps.

Are there any pictures that are more or less accurate to the facts of the case? If there is, is it any good?

[GUT]

Obviously 'accuracy' is in the eye of the beholder, given that the vast majority of Ripper films seem to be either 1) some variant of or combination between the Royal and Masonic Conspiracies and (2) the "modern-day Ripper", either with the Ripper traveling time to arrive in the present day (of the film) or some descendant following in their ancestor's footsteps.

Are there any pictures that are more or less accurate to the facts of the case? If there is, is it any good?

I'm yet to see one.

[Rosella]

I wish somebody would make one, showing the real conditions of the East End and the victims' lives. It might be more suitable as a TV series, made by the BBC and keeping to the facts, (such as they are!)

[Penhalion]

I think it would be interesting to tell the story of a person or family living in the East End in 1888 and show both their day to day living conditions and the effect that the murders had on the area, sort of a dark reflection of Downton Abbey. Focusing exclusively on the investigation requires the production to either choose a Jack or be doomed to an unresolved ending (which they hate). I'd rather see the murders used as an environmental element.

[kensei]

I think the 1988 "Jack the Ripper" miniseries with Michael Caine might be one of the most historically accurate-- which is not saying much since it has plenty of departures from reality. I did really enjoy it though.

I would love to see a movie that just flat-out played it straight. I think that the right advertising campaign that spelled out that the Ripper case was never solved and that no other movie before this one has ever accurately told the story would put a lot of people in the seats. That way you wouldn't get peoples' hopes up that they were going to get a satisfying ending- the very unsatisfying nature of the case would be the hook. Abberline slamming a drawer shut perhaps in the last shot, and walking out of his office hanging his head and saying "This is the most anyone will ever know."

[Scott Nelson]

I think the 1988 "Jack the Ripper" miniseries with Michael Caine might be one of the most historically accurate

Not even close.

[curious4]

I think it would be interesting to tell the story of a person or family living in the East End in 1888 and show both their day to day living conditions and the effect that the murders had on the area, sort of a dark reflection of Downton Abbey. Focusing exclusively on the investigation requires the production to either choose a Jack or be doomed to an unresolved ending (which they hate). I'd rather see the murders used as an environmental element.

Eastenders 1888!

[Bridewell]

Defective Detective, just to clarify, are you asking which is the most historically accurate film or do you mean drawing/painting of the supposed perpetrator?

[Defective Detective]

Defective Detective, just to clarify, are you asking which is the most historically accurate film or do you mean drawing/painting of the supposed perpetrator?

Haha, film.

[Defective Detective]

I think the 1988 "Jack the Ripper" miniseries with Michael Caine might be one of the most historically accurate-- which is not saying much since it has plenty of departures from reality. I did really enjoy it though.

I would love to see a movie that just flat-out played it straight. I think that the right advertising campaign that spelled out that the Ripper case was never solved and that no other movie before this one has ever accurately told the story would put a lot of people in the seats. That way you wouldn't get peoples' hopes up that they were going to get a satisfying ending- the very unsatisfying nature of the case would be the hook. Abberline slamming a drawer shut perhaps in the last shot, and walking out of his office hanging his head and saying "This is the most anyone will ever know."

What about a picture that had multiple suspects without ever conclusively fingering one of them?

So say you open the picture with James Kelly's murder of his wife and escape from Broadmoor. You cut to Severin Klosowski arriving in the London Docks, and William Bury meeting his wife in the brothel, and John Pizer wearing his Leather Apron about town, and Aaron Kosminski working.

You intercut scenes of the murders with glimpses of the private lives of these suspects, so that there's no one overarching narrative, but you get condensed versions of the dramas of each of these characters: Kelly on the lam, Klosowski's wife hunting and dandyism, Bury manipulating Ellen and robbing her of her money, Pizer's role as an official suspect in the Whitechapel murders, Kosminski slipping into insanity.

And then in the end you wrap it up by showing the fates of these characters: Klosowski poising his wives and hanging, Bury cutting up his wife and hanging, Kelly turning himself in after for years on the run, Pizer not being charged, Kosminski going into the asylum.

The Whitechapel Murders then become almost incidental to the exploration of the lives of these fascinating people, who are all interesting even without being Jack The Ripper.

That might work better as a television miniseries, though.

[Mayerling]

It's bits and pieces really. The Michael Caine series brought in Armand Assante as the actor Richard Mansfield then appearing in "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde", but ruined that by trying to suggest Mansfield was a suspect (he never was). They also tried to make the medium Robert Lees a suspect (again he never was). However, I recall that they had a moment of horror when they briefly showed what Mary Kelly's room looked like (in color) when her body was found (shot with a very bright orange effect). Later Caine, as Abberline, shows the actual photo of Mary's corpse to Dr. Gull. The series pushed the "Gull - protecting - the - idiot - Prince Eddy" theory too much.

A similar flaw about solutions appeared in the film "Murder By Decree" produced a decade earlier, when the royal cover-up theory was given greater credence. That film is fantasy as the detective solving it is Sherlock Holmes with Dr. Watson (I'd forgive that as they are portrayed by Christopher Plummer and James Mason, two of my favorite actors). But what I liked was a minor point. The role of Prime Minister Lord Salisbury was played by another favorite British actor of mine, Cecil Parker, and he really looked like Salisbury. Otherwise well made film but no other cigar.

An earlier Sherlock Holmes film, "A Study in Terror" with John Neville as the sleuth, was based on an Ellery Queen tale about the solution to the mystery. It went off base, although it did get the grime of the area correct in scenes at a clinic run by suspect Anthony Quayle. I did like what I suspected was the sad way Mary Kelly may have lured her own doom to herself in the film. The actress playing Mary is safely in her bedroom, looks out the window and invites the killer in, saying it's nice and safe inside. Of cause we can't ever tell if this was the case.

Getting back to the Caine miniseries, there was a pathetic error tied to that business with Assante's/ Mansfield's "Jeckyll and Hyde". Looked ahead too to 1941. Mary Kelly and two other of the victims are having a drink together in a cheap pub, and you hear music in the background that is supposed to be the typical music hall tunes (like "Champagne Charlie is my Name") played there. The tune they are playing is "Do You Want to Dance the Polka", which Ivy (Ingrid Bergman) sings in a pub in the 1941 "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" with Spencer Tracy.

"The Lodger" with Laird Cregar (1944) is a well made atmospheric, hoisted by a typically superb Cregar performance (though not as good as his last performance as George Bone in "Hangover Square", nor his dangerous police detective in "I Wake Up Screaming"/"Hot Spot"). It had one interesting point of reality - a scene in Scotland Yard where a picture of Sir Charles Warren was on the wall. Nice touch that. The death of Cregar's character by drowning in the Thames is due to how Mrs. Belloc Lowndes wrote her story (although I believe her suspect drowned in the Serpentine). It makes one recall Druitt, except that Cregar jumps out of a window into the Thames when he is cornered by police and on-lookers after trying to kill Merle Oberon. No solitary death at Chiswick here.

So it goes with all these films - there are some good points outweighed by many fictions.

[Bridewell]

It might be more appropriate to ask which is the least historically inaccurate.

[Henry Flower]

Kensei:

I would love to see a movie that just flat-out played it straight. I think that the right advertising campaign that spelled out that the Ripper case was never solved and that no other movie before this one has ever accurately told the story would put a lot of people in the seats. That way you wouldn't get peoples' hopes up that they were going to get a satisfying ending- the very unsatisfying nature of the case would be the hook. Abberline slamming a drawer shut perhaps in the last shot, and walking out of his office hanging his head and saying "This is the most anyone will ever know."

I don't see why that couldn't work. The ambiguity and uncertainty at the end of David Fincher's 2007 Zodiac movie is one of its greatest strengths. Granted, it follows Graysmith's lead in claiming that Arthur Leigh Allen was very likely Zodiac, but it leaves the door open, and the residual impression is one of deep frustration, obsessive questioning, certainly nothing like the 'closure' that almost all idiotic Ripper movies give us. Zodiac also showed that a detailed and honest nuts-and-bolts retelling of the truth of a murder and investigation are almost always more riveting than any of the conspiracy theories anyway. The Prince Eddy/William Gull story simply isn't all that exciting per-se in any case, in my humble opinion.

I simply don't know why no one in Hollywood has ever decided to make the definitive accurate film adaptation of the most famous serial murder sequence in history. I'd pay to go see that!

Mind you, my ultimate movie fantasy would have been Herzog and Bruno S making a definitive movie of the Hinterkaifeck murders...

[Clark]

Here's the thing about historical movies. It's the "movie" part that is paramount. The "historical" bit is mostly set design. The whole point is to tell a visual story that will put bums in seats. Anything else is just gravy.

I maintain a webpage pertaining to movies about Napoleon Bonaparte. I've seen dozens, if not hundreds, of movies and TV shows about Napoleon, and absolutely none of them have ever gotten the history 100% right.

As a genre, historical drama dates back to our earliest history of the theater. There are conventions that have always been followed. Characters are conflated in order to simplify the story. Events are telescoped or transposed to give meaning to the story in an entertaining or instructive way. Historical stories are often told as metaphors for current events or politics. Shakespeare employed all of these techniques in the writing of his historical plays, and we consider him to be the greatest dramatist in the English language.

Expecting an accurate portrayal of any historical event, especially a complex series of events, is to miss the entire point of a dramatic movie. Dramatic movies are judged on how well they tell a story in a sequential visual and audio medium. They are never intended to be judged on historical accuracy.

In the movie "From Hell," people complain about the horrible historical inaccuracies. But the movie isn't intended to be a history lesson. It is meant to be an entertaining dramatic and horrific story. Complaints about the acting, writing, editing issues, or plot holes are all completely justified. But complaining that Johnny Depp doesn't give an historically accurate portrayal of Inspector Abberline merely betrays a lack of appreciation for the language of film.

Abberline in "From Hell" is a representation of all of the various detectives and inspectors who worked on the Ripper case, including fictional elements added for dramatic effect. That's what movies do. Events are telescoped, conflated, and altered to make for a more aesthetically pleasing and meaningful dramatic story line. If you want historical accuracy, watch a documentary (and good luck there).

So in my opinion, asking "what is the most historically accurate Jack the Ripper picture" is like asking "which cheese tastes most like an automobile". There may be a cheese somewhere that tastes more like an automobile than other cheeses, but it has nothing to do with what makes for a good cheese.

[Fisherman]

Clark: I maintain a webpage pertaining to movies about Napoleon Bonaparte.

I KNEW it!