True Crime Movies

[sdreid]

The film, The Strangers, says at the beginning that it's inspired by true events. Most I've read says that those events were the Cabin 28 murders but a few have likened it to Manson. At any rate, I recommend it. As the director says in the DVD extra, it's more of a suspense than a horror movie although there are some horror elements in it.

[sdreid]

Top 25:

25-Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986-U.S.-2:17) Loosely based on murderers Lucas/Toole

24-The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975-U.S.-1:40) Murders of Mr. and Mrs. Borden

23-The Elegant Criminal [L' Elegant Criminel] (1990-Fr.-2:05) Murders by Pierre Lacenaire

22-The Case of Charles Peace (1949-U.K.-1:20) Case of the English killer in black and white

21-Cause Celebre (1987-U.K.-1:49) The Rattenbury murder case

No sign of any Ripper movies anywhere near.

[sdreid]

I watched the new Son of Sam last night, not that I expected much. It's hard to believe that a worse production about the case could be made than Summer of Sam but mission accomplished.

[sdreid]

I wonder why the Radcliffe Highway Murders haven't been covered in a movie or have they? It would seem an interesting topic.

I've read and enjoyed The Maul and the Pear Tree.

[sdreid]

I forget the exact number but I think there were 6 or 7 films based on Burke and Hare. A while back, I listed them but I believe the crash sent them to an alternate universe.

I have them around here somewhere in my personal archives.

[Rob Clack]

Mania - (Peter Cushing, George Rose, Donald Pleasance) - a fairly good retelling of the West Port Murders of 1828. Cushing is Dr. Knox (naturally),
Rose is Burke and Pleasance is Hare.

This films original title was 'The Flesh and the Fiends' and was released a few years back on DVD by Image in a very impressive widescreen version which included the original UK cut of the film plus a the European version which had added scenes of nudity and violence.
Timothy Dalton appeared in 'The Doctor and the Devils' based on the same events.

Another true crime movie I like is 'The Siege of Sidney Street' based on the Houndsditch Murders and the Siege of Sidney Street from 1910 and 1911 and the Tottenham Outrage from 1909 is also thrown in for good measure.

Rob

[Mayerling]

Hi Hook,

I did not notice that when I saw the film...besides historically Richelieu was first a Bishop, then a Cardinal.

The George Arliss performance in CARDINAL RICHELIEU is based on the old play by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, which was a chestnut role for stage stars in the 19th Century (Edwin Booth appeared in it). It's big moment, which is in the film (I'm glad to say) was "the curse of Rome" scene, where a briefly trounced Richelieu (Arliss) warns his enemies (the mother of the King and her second son Gaston) not to touch him or face the wrath of the Holy See. It's one of the few times that type of 19th Century highpoint appeared in modern films. The plot, by the way, combined the Affaire of Ste. Mars. in 1642 with the "day of the Dupes" in 1630 (I think).

Here are a few others:

Death of a Soldier (James Coburn) - the Melbourne Darkout Murders of 1942 leading to the execution of Private Eddie Leonowski (I think that's his name).

Mania - (Peter Cushing, George Rose, Donald Pleasance) - a fairly good retelling of the West Port Murders of 1828. Cushing is Dr. Knox (naturally),
Rose is Burke and Pleasance is Hare.

Lizzie Borden (Elizabeth Montgomery, Fritz Weaver) - a television film about the Fall River tragedy (Weaver was Andrew Jackson Borden).

All The King's Men (Broderick Crawford, Mercedes Macambridge, John Ireland, John Derek; Robert Rossen, Director)
A Lion is in the Streets (James Cagney)
The Life and Death of "the Kingfish" (Ed Asner)
There was a fourth television film with John Goodman - all of these, of course, dealing with the career (fictionalized or not) of Governor/Senator Huey Pierce Long, up to his assassination (or accidental shooting).

Jeff

[Captain Hook]

Hello Jeff,

If I remember correctly, the Richelieu played by Vincent Price in the Gene Kelly - Lana Turner The Three Musketeers was not a Cardinal. I think there was pressure from the Church to make the character a civilian, as it were.

Best,
Hook

[sdreid]

I'll try to check that out Glenn. I've seen it in the TV listings but never bothered to watch it because I thought it was one of those Lifetime Channel movies, going by the title.

[Glenn Lauritz Andersson]

Personally, I quite like Stalking Laura (called I Can Make You Love Me in the US), about the case of Laura Black and the mass murderer Richard Farley (who still is on death row).
I usually often get disappointed by Hollywood films that claim to be 'based on a true story' but this dramatisation feels quite close to the actual events, since I know a bit about the case.

The element that differs the most from the real case is probably Richard Farley's apparence in the film. In the movie he is played by the rather young looking Richard Thomas (known for playing the sympathetic 'all-american-guy' roles, like the one in the series Waltons), while the real Richard Farley was rather stout, wore glasses and a beard.

Richard Thomas does a hell of a good job, though, and plays a very convincing obsessive psychopath.

All the best

[sdreid]

A top 20:

20-Dandelion Dead (1994-U.K.-4:00) Murder by Herbert Armstrong

19-I Want to Live (1958-U.S.-2:00) Black and white film about the Barbara Graham case

18-The Murder of Mary Phagan (1987-U.S.-4:11) Leo Frank is accused of slaying a young girl

17-Crime of the Century (1996-U.S-1:56) Lindbergh kidnapping and murder

16-The Life and Crimes of William Palmer (1998-U.K.-3:00) The poisoning serial killer doctor

[sdreid]

OK, I'll make it a top 15:

15-The Krays (1990-U.K.-1:59) The Kray brothers and their crimes

14-An American Crime (2007-U.S.-1:38) The murder of Sylvia Likens

13-Dance With a Stranger (1985-U.K.-1:41) Ruth Ellis' killing of David Blakely

12-Psycho (1960-U.S.-1:49) Black and white Hitchcock film inspired by the Ed Gein murders

11-Murder In the Heartland (1993-U.S.-2:37) The Starkweather/Fugate murder spree

[Mayerling]

Here are a few I recall (hope nobody listed these already):

Madeleine (Dir.: David Lean: Ann Todd, Leslie Banks, Andre Morell) - a classy retelling of the trial of Madeleine Smith in 1857.

All This and Heaven Too (Dir: Anatol Litvak; Bette Davis, Charles Boyer) - based on Rachel Field's novel, it is the story of Helene Deluzy - Desportes and her relationship with the Duc and Duchesse of Praslin, and the events leading to the Duchesse's murder in 1847.

The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (Ray Milland, Joan Collins, Farley Granger) -
Ragtime (Howard Rollins, James Cagney, Elizabeth McGovern, Norman Mailer)-
Both films deal (the first one in greater detail) with the murder of Stanford White by Harry K. Thaw over Evelyn Nesbit in 1906.

So Evil My Love - (Ann Todd, Ray Milland, Ramond Huntley, Geraldine Fitzgerald) - a fictionalization of the 1876 Bravo Poisoning Case, mixed (at the tail end) with a suggestion from the 1904 killing of Cesar Young in a hansom cab.

Ladies in Retirement (Ida Lupino, Louis Hayward, Elsa Lanchester) - the transplanting into an English setting of the French murder of a wealthy friend by Eurphrasie Mercier for the sake of her insane siblings in 1885).

The Verdict (Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, George Coulouris, Rosalind Ivan, Paul Cavanagh, Joan Leslie) - set in the late 19th Century, this film is based on the novella, THE BIG BOW MYSTERY by Israel Zangwill. There are elements suggestive of the locked room case of Israel Lipski in 1887, but the victim here is found horribly stabbed to death in his room - and that suggests another locked room case from 1888 that we know of, though of a different sex for the victim. To add to the issue, an illustrated magazine cartoon about the murder (which remains unsolved for much of the picture) resembles the figure of murder with a knife in a celebrated cartoon of the Whitechapel Murders.

Ivy (Joan Fontaine, Herbert Marshall, Patrick Knowles) - although reset in 1909 England (this is the only film I know showing Louis Bleriot's plane landing after he becomes the first man to fly across the English Channel), there are elements in it suggestive of the case against Florence Maybrick, except Fontaine's "Ivy" is guilty, and meets a sticky end.

Hangmen Also Die (Dir.: Fritz Lang,Brian Donleavy, Louise Rainer) -
Hitler's Madman (Dir.: Douglas Sirk, John Carridine, Ralph Morgan, Edgar Kennedy - a rare dramatic performance from this usually comic performer, Howard Freeman) -
These deal with the assassination of S.S. leader and "Protector of Bohemia",
Reinhard Heydrch in 1942. Considering he concocted the "Final Solution"
the previous year, you will excuse me if I like the pleasant fiction that this was actually a premature execution (Heydrich would certainly have decorated a gallows at Nuremburg in 1946).

Prince of Players (Richard Burton, Raymond Massey, John Derek) -
The Prisoner of Shark Island (Dir.: John Ford; Warner Baxter, John Carridine) -
Birth of a Nation (Dir.: D.W. Griffith; Henry B. Walthall, Lillian Gish, Raoul Walsh) -
There have been other films besides these three that dealt with Lincoln's Assassination. PRINCE OF PLAYERS was about Edwin Booth's career, and how his younger brother Jonnie nearly drove him off the stage (only to find the public did not blame him). Burton was Edwin, Derek was John WIlkes, and Massey (surprise) was not Lincoln, but Junius Brutus Booth, their dad.
THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND was about Dr. Samuel Mudd and his years in Fort Jefferson Military Prison as a convicted conspirator. Baxter was Mudd and Carridine was an angry Union guard who is furious about the murder of Lincoln. There was only one scene in BIRTH OF A NATION about the assassination at Ford's Theater, but it was a highlight of the film. Griffith's "Booth" was future director Raoul Walsh.

The Tall Target (Dick Powell, Adolphe Menjou, Will Geer, Marshall Thompson, Ruby Dee) - So far this is the only film to deal with the so-called "Baltimore
Assassination" Plot against Lincoln, supposedly led by an immigrant Italian barber.

The Three Musketteers (Walter Abel) -
The Three Musketteers (Douglas Fairbanks Sr.)
The Three Musketteers (Gene Kelly, Van Heflin, Frank Morgan, Vincent Price - as Cardinal Richelieu, Robert Coote, Angela Lansberry, Lana Turner, June Alyson, Gig Young, Keenan Wynn)
The Three Musketteers (Michael York, Roy Kinnear, Spike Milligan, Faye Dunaway, Raquel Welch, Charlton Heston - as Richelieu)
There are other versions - the murder involved here (which helped end the French siege of La Rochelle in 1628) was the assassination of George Villiers,
First Duke of Buckingham and chief minister of King Charkes I. In the novel it was historically correct - done by John Felton at Portsmouth in August 1628.
But in the 1946 film from MGM whose cast I really recalled, Lana Turner commits the murder as Milady DeWinter.

Becket - (Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, John Guilgud, Donald Wolfit) - the
story of the rise of Thomas a'Becket to becoming chief minister to his friend King Henry II, the mistake of making Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, his gradual split with Henry on theological independence from the King, and the events eventually leading to his murder in the cathedral at Canterbury, and Henry's penance in 1171.


This Is My Affair - (Robert Taylor, Victor McGlaglan, Barbara Stanwyck) - a story about Taylor sent by the President of the U.S. at the turn of the 20th Century to the midwest to break up a counterfeiting ring. The trick in the plot is that Taylor is only known to one man to be a government agent: President William McKinley. And then Leon Czolgosz goes to see McKinley at Buffalo, just as Taylor's safety is becoming less and less certain.

That is sufficient for an early list.

Jeff

[Sherlock]

Has anyone seen Yield to the Night starring Diana Dors, which I have just obtained on DVD?

It is often stated to have been inspired by the Ruth Ellis case, to which the storyline bears some similarities. However, I believe that the film was actually based on a novel of the same name. Indeed, I remember Diana Dors herself stating on a television interview many years ago that the film had actually been planned before the Ellis case occurred.

As Ruth Ellis was executed in 1955 and Yield to the Night was released in 1956, no doubt the two were often linked in people's minds, especially as the film does take a strong stance against capital punishment.

SHERLOCK

[sdreid]

You should see An American Crime, a disturbing and powerful film about Gertrude Baniszewski, the woman who tortured a girl to death over a period of weeks in 1965. Sylvia Likens had been left in her care for the summer. Mrs. Baniszewski said, "I had to teach her a lesson." The whole affair is unexplainable. I remember the case when it was in the news and, at the time, our minister even mentioned it in his sermon at church.