Cape and Top Hat?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — From Hell
joke_ster36-2 — 10 years ago(August 27, 2015 04:45 PM)
Why is Jack the Ripper always portrayed as wearing a cape and top hot? Did anybody actually see this after a murder or was it just common clothing in that time?
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Fingaroo — 10 years ago(August 28, 2015 07:33 AM)
I think that Jack the Ripper was much more likely to be some local, lowlife nobody than an aristocratic, well-heeled, top hat-and-cape wearing toff. But it adds a bit of color to the story to flesh him out as a rich guy, and filmmakers find it a lot easier to portray an aura of menace that way as well. Fact is, since we know of no one who got a positive look at him and lived to tell about it, we know next to nothing about his appearance. So I guess one type of portrayal is just as valid as the next (aside from the ludicrously implausible, i.e.: Prince Albert Victor, Lewis Carroll, Frederick Abberline, etc.)
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Fingaroo — 10 years ago(August 31, 2015 06:02 AM)
Indeed there were multiple witnesses who saw men with most of the victims before they were killed, some shortly before. But as these women were prostitutes they would be expected to be seen in the company of different men as a matter of course. So it's possible that one or more of the witnesses saw the man who would turn out to be the killer, but which one? Unfortunately nobody saw a murder actually being committed, nor were there any reliable reports of blood-soaked fiends running off laughing maniacally. The dirtbag was either really smart, really lucky, or both.
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evguenimlodik — 10 years ago(March 28, 2016 02:17 PM)
Yes, indeed there were multiple witnesses who saw suspicious men lurking about right before or after some of the murders, but NONE were described as upper class dandies with fashionable capes and top hats. They all appeared to typical lower class Whitechapel urchins.
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joe_538 — 9 years ago(September 30, 2016 09:07 AM)
There are a lot of older movies where he's shown to be very average and unassuming in appearance. By the sixties and seventies, some of the more unlikely conspiracies involving upper class physicians and members of the royal family were gaining popularity, and popular culture reflected this.
The public wanted something elaborate and mysterious to match the Ripper's reputation, not a mentally ill Polish immigrant or a petty criminal.