If you missed the last one…
“Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” (Weird Tales, July 1943, also in The Mystery Companion, 1943) is in some ways Robert Bloch’s first big story. If you look in The Best of Robert Bloch (1977), which is part of a Science Fiction series of collections, this entry is the first in that book. The editors felt everything he wrote before 1943 was junior work. That’s ten years of apprentice tales. And this isn’t entirely wrong. Bloch started as an acolyte of H. P. Lovecraft and most of this early stuff is such. But he did start writing SF in 1938 with the very awful “Secret of the Observatory” ( Amazing Stories, August 1938).
With “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” Bloch shifts his Horror from Lovecraftian beasties to serial killers. This is the beginning of Norman Bates and Psycho. But not entirely, for the tale still bears the Lovecraftian touch. More on that later.
The first section of the story is all set up. An Englishman named Sir Guy Hollis goes to a shrink named John Carmody. Hollis outlines the entire career of Red Jack with his murders in Whitechapel. Then he goes on to point out all the killings in other parts of the world since 1888. To finish, he proposes that these killings are the work of Jack the Ripper. Carmody does the math and says quite logically, that Jack the Ripper would near a hundred years old in 1943. Hollis has an answer for that: the killings serve a purpose, a black purpose. Jack is a cultist of an old god and the blood allows him to remain immortal. Hollis wants Carmody’s help in finding Jack the Ripper, living in Chicago, IL.
The next portion of the story is Hollis and Carmody’s hunt for Happy Jack. To find Jack, the doctor takes Sir Guy to a party filled with eccentrics. When these weirdos and artists hear that the Englishman is looking for Jack the Ripper, they propose to turn off the lights and let Jack have an opportunity to kill. The lights go out and Sir Guy screams. The lights come on and the supposed victim looks into the faces of the partiers. None has the guilty eye of a killer. Sir Guy has proven that none of the partiers are Jack the Ripper.
The last portion of the story has Sir Guy and Dr. Carmody in the roughest part of Chicago. The two run about in the London-thick fog. They visit a dingy bar, then back into the fog. Sir Guy feels lost but Dr. Carmody is there beside him. Until the shrink pulls a knife and stabs him. John Carmody finishes with, “Just call me…Jack.”
Thriller
“Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” was an episode of Thriller on April 11, 1961. It was adapted by Barre Lyndon. The director was veteran actor, Ray Milland. Sir Guy was played perfectly by John Williams. Carmody was Donald Woods, a pleasantly handsome man who you would never suspect. Lyndon restructures the story, adding many characters. He buries the first part of Bloch’s story, the historical retread in two scenes. We open on what is supposed to be London England (and very obviously isn’t.) A woman is crossing the street at night and encounters a Bobbie. He chides her for being out then sends her on her way. She goes home and Jack kills her in her house. (It’s funny when Brits portray Americans on English TV, usually by being very loud and swearing. Americans do just as badly at Londoners, with accents that are way too forced.) The second scene is J. Pat O’Malley as a street singer doing “The Ballad of Jack the Ripper” to the accompaniment of a woman playing a small concertina.
We jump to a room full of American law enforcement types talking with Sir Guy. The Englishman predicts that another death will occur in three days. He also tells us his theory on how Jack the Ripper is still alive after seventy years. The cops mostly think he is crazy but an operation is set up to catch the killer (whoever he is) on the third night. We see another woman taken in her own house. It is a modern replay of the opener of the show.
The cops are powerless as more murders follow. The party scene is replaced with Sir Guy hanging out at an art studio. He believes there is a link between art galleries and the Ripper. We get to meet a bunch of eccentric artists instead. Hymie Kralik paints a portrait of a blond model, surrounding her with dead flowers. This is followed by the funeral of the first victim. One of the coffin-bearers trips and the casket falls open. Women scream when they see what is left of the dead woman. Back to the artists where we see the judging of the art show, where Hymie wins first prize. The model has to leave the celebrations and goes home and is murdered, too.
After the next funeral, Hymie blames himself for getting his model killed. He worries he gave the serial killer the idea of murdering her. The police set up another sting to find the Ripper. He has claimed five victims, so will disappear after the sixth. Sir Guy is involved in the chase, along with Dr. Carmody. They go to a jazz club but end up in the dark street, where Carmody believes Jack will get away. Sir Guy agrees but states that now the police know his methods, he will be caught eventually. The doctor turns to Sir Guy and shows him a knife, which he uses to stab the Englishman. Sir Guy says: “John!” The final line is a little different: “Not John — Jack!”
Thriller was faithful to the idea if not the plot. The expansion of events is a result of the television format. The story as written would have been too short by at least one commercial. The cheesy scene where the coffin falls open felt rather like something cribbed from a Hammer movie. The idea of an immortal killer taking victims to secure more time will surface again Richard Matheson’s Kolchak the Night Strangler (1973). That one is set in Seattle because the Boston Strangler gets around, too.
Conclusion
“Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” was not the last of Red Jack for Robert Bloch. He wrote a sequel in “A Toy For Juliette” in Dangerous Vision (1967) and “Wolf In the Fold”, a Star Trek episode (December 22, 1967) in which Jack the Ripper’s spirit gets Scotty accused of murder. John Fiedler, with his Piglet voice, is funny but scary when the Ripper possesses him. Bloch wrote the novel Night of the Ripper in 1984. He wrote several novels about insane killers with, of course, Psycho in 1959. Also The Scarf (1947), The Will To Kill (1951), The Kidnaper (1954) and Firebug (1961). The darkness of insanity was one of the major themes he explored after leaving Lovecraft’s “Cosmic Horror” mostly behind.
Next time… Robert Bloch adapts himself with “The Devil’s Ticket”.
