McFarland's true crime sale.

In honor of CrimeCon, McFarland is running a sale on its true crime books. Use coupon code CRIMECON25 to save 20 percent through the end of September.

 

Film score to Murder by Decree (1979).

As Scott Bettencourt notes in Film Score Friday, the score for the Sherlock Holmes film Murder by Decree (dir. Bob Clark, 1979) has been released by Howling Wolf Records. Holmes, played by Christopher Plummer, and Dr. Watson, played by James Mason, go on the trail of Jack the Ripper. The composers are Carl Zittrer and Paul Zaza.

Notre Dame's London Book Club: "Hitchcock in London"

Oscar Homolka and Sylvia
Sidney in Hitchcock's Sabotage

The virtual London Book Club of the University of Notre Dame is currently covering "Hitchcock in London." The episodes include discussions of works adapted for Alfred Hitchcock films such as Marie Belloc Lowndes's The Lodger and Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent. Catch up with episodes here.

Meyer on The Seven Per-Cent Solution.

In this thoughtful 1981 event of the Writers Guild Foundation focused on adaptation, director-writer Nicholas Meyer discusses issues encountered in adapting his novel The Seven Per-Cent Solution to the screen. There also is interesting coverage of the novel versus film of Brian Garfield's Death Wish and Meyer's film Time After Time that pitted H.G. Wells against Jack the Ripper. Says Meyer:

I feel that if you are taking the life of someone famous as being worthy of making a film about, he or she is worth making an accurate film about. It is peculiarly revolting to me to watch biographical films that have felt the irresistible need to improve the lives of their subjects in order to render them sufficiently palatable or entertaining to an audience.

Meyer also states, "I am troubled by the fact that we now place more emphasis and importance on packaging than what is being packaged
. . . . Where does dramatic license end and vandalism begin?"

Of related interest: I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere podcast interview with Meyer

New scholarly edition of The Lodger (1911).

On September 1 Cambridge Scholars Publishing will issue a new scholarly edition of The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes—a novel in which a landlady becomes suspicious of the activities of her tenant. It became a noteworthy early film by Alfred Hitchcock. The editor is Elyssa Warkentin (University of Manitoba), who has brought together The Lodger's original 1911 appearance in McClure's magazine and the 1913 novel version. It's an appropriate project for Warkentin, who had an article in Clues about early Jack-the-Ripper fictionalizations.

Ripperology.

London's Museum in Docklands is holding a new exhibit "Jack the Ripper and the East End" that will run to November 2. Here is a BBC Radio 4 Front Row program about the exhibit (that also includes a discussion of All You Need Is Love, a documentary on popular music).

See also the Whitechapel Society.