| Author | Message | ||
     Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 92.4.163.216 |
I watched Christopher Plummer and James Mason as Holmes and Watson last night in the excellent jack the Ripper story "Murder by Decree". Okay, so it as that hoary old nonsense about JtheR being linked to the royals blah blah, something I don't believe in for one moment, especially after some intensive reading around the subject a few year ago as research for an article. It was the last scene when Holmes confronts the PM an Foreign Secretary in a masonic lodge that struck a raw nerve with me. The idea that there are those who exercise absolute power over us. Yes, we are a democracy, but behind the smiling face of government, we are run by a mafia, a closed community of privileged and assumed authority. Especially now, in a society where the working and hard up are kicked ever harder and being treated like Fags at Eton. It seemed bang up to date, that's my point, very pointed. Cheers Terry | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
Sometimes I think a culture's conspiracy theories are the contemporary equivalent of the myths and ideas that underpin it. Even when they're not true, they sometimes catch a sort of truth about that culture in them. Even though they're fictions, they feel true. From Hell, for all its flaws, did the same thing- a hidden, controlling circle of wealth and privilege, maintaining the social order with its outward pomp and ceremony by ruthless violence, repression and control. | ||
| Paul_finch (Paul_finch) Username: Paul_finch Registered: 11-2009 Posted From: 92.5.57.6 |
Though I liked FROM HELL very much, it amazed me when it came out that nobody pointed out that the exact same story had already been told in JACK THE RIPPER (the rather awful Michael Caine movie in 1988) and another decade earlier in the much better MURDER BY DECREE. I'm not sure when the FROM HELL graphic novel was published, but I'd be surprised if predated 1979. Of course, it's a very famous (if discredited) Ripper theory, but the plots of these three movies are all very, very close. | ||
| Mbfg (Mbfg) Username: Mbfg Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 212.219.63.204 |
I believe the murders were carried out by a "Rip Gang" which were extortionists who operated in the murky Victorian world of poverty and prostitution. Didn't pay your protection money? You were "ripped", attacked with a knife and mutilated and usually killed. One prostitute whose death predates the first official Ripper murder by a few months was such a rip gang victim. her abdominal wounds were savage, but she lived long enough to tell the police what had happened to her. The whole Jack the Ripper aura comes from the fact that it was the first nationwide-reported media murder event. There, that's my two penny worth. Simon, I'm not proposing a Shadowy organised Masonic type conspiracy theory. I just think that despite the '60s and the death of reverence for our "betters", those with the money, and whatever power and authority they possess, guard it jealously and will do anything to protect themselves from us revolting cake-eating peasants. Regards Terry | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
Terry- nor am I, with regard to the Ripper murders. What I meant was that conspiracy theory makes a very powerful and truthful metaphor for much else in Britain- basically, for the very things you're talking about. | ||
| Simon Strantzas (Nomis) Username: Nomis Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 74.198.87.21 |
FROM HELL, the film, has very little to do with the graphic novel, other than the idea of who the Ripper was. The graphic novel is an amalgamation of all the different texts on the Ripper, plus historical records, but Moore tries to make clear that it's simply a version of history written on the presumption of the killer, not any sort of proof of who the killer was. But, since he based the identity on a popular theory/text, it's no surprise that other films have used the same theory/text for their screenplays. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.1.161 |
Can anyone recommend to me a really good novel-length Sherlock Holmes pastiche that is currently in print? I'm planning my reading for the winter and something along those lines seems called for. Chris and Barbara, if you see this I'd value your recommendation. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.29.252.215 |
Read 'Full Dark House', Joel. If you haven't already. | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.166.73 |
A friend of mine published a couple of spoofs- Sherlock Holmes And The Underpants of Death and Sherlock Holmes and the Flying Zombie Death Monkeys- but I suspect that's not quite what you had in mind.  | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
I have every issue of the original lamentably short run of 'Taboo' in which the first instalments of 'From Hell' appeared. But I wouldn't part with them for love nor money. It and 'Fly In My Eye' represent some kind of high-water mark for horror comic anthologies, imo. 'From Hell' is an ingenious deconstruction of the entire Jack the Ripper myth. The best book on the subject, and the greatest true crime book ever published, remains Philip Sugden's bible of ripperology, 'The Complete History Of Jack The Ripper'. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 178.116.57.51 |
I can heartily recommend Jack the Ripper: the Final Solution (Granada 1977), Stephen Knight's 288-page study of the Ripper case. It's very well researched and comprises a bibliography and an index. Most of From Hell appears to have been derived from this book. Knight devotes entire chapters to Sir William Gull and the Masonic angle. I remember seeing Murder by Decree a very long time ago but am afraid I don't remember much of it. Would love to see it again. | ||
| Barbara Roden (Nebuly) Username: Nebuly Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 216.232.188.106 |
Paul: A number of Sherlockians (including me, in an editorial for CANADIAN HOLMES) commented at the time how FROM HELL (the movie) was as near as dammit MURDER BY DECREE all over again. Kim Newman pointed out the same thing last week, in an article detailing his ten favourite Holmes films (DECREE was one of them). Joel: I'm afraid I can't help much when it comes to novel-length Holmes pastiches that are any good, as it's been so long since I read one. My own feeling is that Holmes doesn't really lend himself to novel-length adventures; his creator could barely manage to do it, and only then by keeping Holmes out of the action for a good part of all four novels. I've heard positive comments about Lyndsey Faye's recent-ish novel DUST AND SHADOW, which pits Holmes against the Ripper. It might be better to try to pick up an anthology of Holmes pastiches; the short story format suits Holmes better, and you're more likely to find something that works. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.19.106 |
Thanks for the recommendations, Stevie and Barbara. I did read a pastiche Holmes novel about twenty years ago, I forget who by. It wasn't bad but had no strong reason (other than marketability) to be a Holmes novel rather than just an historical crime novel. It wasn't the one by Mark Frost, which seems to be the best-regarded attempt. I might try the Penguin anthology of quite early pastiches (edited by Doyle's son). Or, following Stevie's suggestion, try something non-Holmes that has a similar approach. Solar Pons and Jules de Grandin don't cut it, I'm sure you'd agree. | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.11.102.208 |
Apparently Murder by Decree is being rereleased on DVD next year. About time. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 99.126.164.88 |
If MURDER BY DECREE is the one I'm thinking of, I don't remember a whole lot about it (my mind must be blocking it, because...), except for one thing: I remember it being probably one of the most depressingly dreary downer movies I've ever seen, of any genre. A film that leaves you feeling just bleak and hollow and empty. Am I thinking of the right one?... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Those Solar Pons stories sound great fun, Joel. I haven't read any of them but have yet to be disappointed by any of Derleth's writing (including those Lovecraft "collaborations" I've read). As for Jules de Grandin - those tales remain a quietly cherished guilty pleasure, when come across unexpectedly. What a shame it is that we don't have more of Auguste Dupin (no matter how derided by Holmes himself) and Thomas Carnacki to enjoy. I'm almost finished the 8th Bryant & May novel, 'Off The Rails', and about to read 'His Last Bow' for the first time. For me 2011 has been the year of great detective duos.  | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.208.112.245 |
Joel, what about the Anthony Horowitz novel The House of Silk? http://www.amazon.co.uk/House-Silk-Sherlock-Holmes-Novel/dp/1409133826/ref=sr_1_ 1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323120136&sr=1-1 The reviews I've read so far have been good (I don't mean on Amazon). | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 2.24.30.251 |
Jules de Grandin is fun in small and selective doses. The collection The Phantom Fighter is quite sound, and some of the recurrent anthology pieces are impressive. But if you collect the five 1980s paperback collections and one novel, you soon realise it's the same thing over and over, and many of the stories are padded to twice their natural length. 'Clair de Lune' (reprinted in one of the early PBHS) is a good vampire story and unusually grim, a reminder that Quinn (more often when not employing de Grandin) could be quite powerful. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'Clair de Lune' is the one I'm thinking of, Joel, as the best of the JdeG stories I've read. It's in 'The Fifth Pan Book Of Horror Stories' (1963) and would form a nice accompaniment to Doyle's 'A Scandal In Bohemia'. The strong female antagonist - kicking against the pricks - as the greatest menace our stout hearted hero has ever had to face is a favourite theme of mine and not half as patronising as many feminists would make out, imho. Dashiell Hammett, Robert E. Howard, Robert A. Heinlein, Raymond Chandler, Fritz Leiber, Karl Edward Wagner and, it would appear, Gene Wolfe have all had field days with it. Unreconstructed I may be but I know an impressive woman when I come across one! | ||
| Stu (Stu) Username: Stu Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 82.11.94.40 |
Stevie, you might want to rethink the way you phrased that last sentence. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Thanks, Stu. I'm forever doing that!  | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 82.33.242.34 |
Solar Pons and Jules de Grandin don't cut it, I'm sure you'd agree. I do! In fact I was very disappointed by the Solar Pons tales. I have the handsome 3 volume Complete de Grandin but only managed one and a half before getting a bit bored, to be honest. We did recently revisit it for a bedtime story for Lady P about the one where the mad scientist turns a girl into Humpty Dumpty - very nasty indeed. |