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By Root 183 0

Ripper comics by far are those by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, and Rick Geary. Rick Geary’s Jack the Ripper (1995) is part of his ongoing A Treasury of Victorian Murder series and tells the case from the viewpoint of a Victorian gentleman who relates the case as it was revealed through the press to the public. Geary’s slightly soft-looking people and off-kilter framing work wonders for the story and manage to make it feel quite fresh again. Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell appeared sporadically between 1991 and 1998 in eleven issues published by Tundra and then Kitchen Sink Press. Adopting Stephen Knight’s theory from Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, Moore and Campbell breathe new life into every aspect and character involved in the Ripper crimes. They use the Ripper case to explore every facet of Victorian society and ‘the man who was midwife to the 20th Century’, his slaughter ushering us into a new century of new horrors. From Hell’s final chapter, ‘Dance of the Gull-Catchers’, which dissects the whole history of Ripperology, should be set reading for anyone interested in the crimes or considering their own final solution.

Films

Farmer Spudd and His Missus Take a Trip to Town (1915, director JVL Leigh) is the first supposed cinematic sighting of the Ripper. The riotously-named Spudd (and presumably, his missus) apparently encounters the Ripper in waxwork form at Madame Tussaud’s. Other Wax Rippers were to appear. Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (1924, Paul Leni) featured William Dieterle as a young poet hired to write stories about the waxworks and Werner Krauss as the Ripper, coming to life and pursuing him through his dreams in the third and most Expressionist of the three segments. Terror at the Wax Museum (1973, George Fenady) featured John Carradine and Ray Milland in a badly-written effort where a Jack the Ripper waxwork might just be committing murders (it’s all right, it’s not).

The Lodger – A Story of the London Fog (1926)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Ivor Novello, June, Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney

The first (silent) screen outing for Marie Belloc Lowndes’ novel. Hitchcock considered this to be his first proper film. Ivor Novello plays the young man suspected of being the Ripper by his landlady. Hitchcock had wanted an ambivalent ending, but Novello was a big enough star for the producers to insist that he must be innocent. The other adaptations were The Lodger (1932, Maurice Elvey), a sound version, again featuring Novello in the lead, The Lodger (1944, John Brahm) which had Laird Cregar turn out to be the Ripper and The Man in the Attic (1953, Hugo Fregonese) which had Jack Palance as the sinister lodger, who is eventually tracked by his fingerprints (something the police in 1888 were still pooh-poohing) and drowns himself. Case closed.

Although based on a BBC feature written by Margery Allingham, Room to Let (1949, Godfrey Grayson) was similar in story, featuring Valentine Dyall as the strange lodger and Jimmy Hanley as a nosy (and irritating) reporter. It was one of the first films from the fledgling Hammer studio and was co-scripted by John Gilling.

Die Büsche Der Pandora (1929) (aka Pandora’s Box)

Director: GW Pabst. Cast: Louise Brooks, Fritz Kortner, Franz Lederer, Gustav Diessl

Adapted from Franz Wedekind’s plays Erdgeist and Die Büsche Der Pandora, it follows the fall of pharmacist’s daughter, Lulu (Brooks) through murder and prostitution to her fatal encounter with Jack the Ripper, the Thanatos to her Eros. The plays were refilmed as Lulu aka No Orchids for Lulu (1962, Rolf Thiele, Nadja Tiller as Lulu), Lulu (1978, Ronald Chase, Elisa Leonelli) and (surprise) Lulu (1980, Walerian Borowczyk, Ann Bennent). The plays themselves have been staged on many occasions – in London most recently with Anna Friel earning middling reviews for her Lulu. None of them have achieved the iconic status that Brooks managed back in 1929.

The Ripper has had cameos in other films. GW Pabst’s 1930s adaptation of Brecht and Weill’s The Threepenny Opera and the 1963 version (director Wolfgang Staudte)