The play (and later film) was loosely based on the Scopes Monkey Trial
The play/film was Inherit the Wind of course :smack:
When the Texas Chain Saw Massacre claims to be “based on a true story” this is the true story it’s supposed to based on. :rolleyes:
Nothing like Ed Gein’s gruesome tale, of course (he never chppoed up a van full of pit-smokin’ hippies). But “based on a true story” sounds scarier and sells more tickets…
Psycho closer to the Gein case, though with some serious dramatic liberties.
Actually, Cecil may have debunked the TCM “true story” thing at some point, come to think of it…
Mr. Texas Chainsaw Massacre himself.
Wondering if there will be a Law and Order episode where a woman drowns her kids after watching it on an episode of Law and Order.
“Your honor, the defendant’s claim is false, since I know I didn’t do any such episode, and I have a affidavit from Michael Moriarty that he didn’t either!”
The Exorcist was also based on a “true” story.
:smack: You are, of course, completely right. I’d forgotten about this one, because it’s probably the farthest from any actual facts in the Gein case.
(I live in Texas, and on the occasional school trip, when I was a wee lad, I recall seeing a dilapidated old house, in passing. One of the old kids told me “You know that movie, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? That’s the place where it HAPPENED!”
I found out years later that the building in question was one of the filming locations.)
The murders committed by Ed Gein inspired at least Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs, and probably at least twenty other movies…
The wearing of human skin is the connection here - also the connection to Silence of the Lambs. One of the more lurid details of the Gein case.
Moving away from serial killer evening wear, there’s a movie called Grace of My Heart which stars Ileana Douglas as a 60’s singer/songwriter very much like Carole King, and featuring a number of scenes which map to real-life incidents. In fact the story is so similar that I wondered why they even bothered fictionalising it. My best guess is that someone wrote a movie about Carole King and she wouldn’t give them the rights. It’s not particularly scandalous at any rate.
Perhaps you’re thinking of Compulsion (a good flick IMHO) although it wasn’t directed by Hitchcock but rather by Richard Fleischer.
Hitchcock’s Rope was an adaptation of the play of the same name. The play was inspired by the Leopold and Loeb case, although it differs from reality in numerous major details. For instance, L&L murdered a little boy, not a young man of their own peer group.
Compulsion was an adaptation of the novel of the same name. That book was more directly based on L&L than the play Rope. IIRC it was written by a journalist who’d not only covered the trial but had actually been a college classmate of the killers, although I may be confusing the narrator’s backstory with the real author. Compulsion follows the real events of the murder and trial much more closely than Rope, but the names are changed and a fair amount is speculation or pure fiction. (Leopold himself apparently did not think it was very accurate.)
The novel Declare by Tim Powers is clearly fantasy – it’s based on the idea that Soviet Russia achieved it’s successes during the Cold War by obtaining a djinn from Mount Ararat in Turkey … but it’s also based on the life of Cold War spy Kim Philby – in fact, nothing in the novel conflicts with the historical facts of Philby’s life. It is also one helluva read.
Everything by Powers that I’ve read made very skillful use of historic events and real people within the context of a science-fiction or fantasy story. The Stress of Her Regard (which I love because it so prominently features my namesakes!) is largely consistent with what is known of the lives of Byron, Keats, and Shelley…it just fills in the blanks in a fanciful and frightening way. The Anubis Gates is similar, although I noticed less direct borrowing from history. It may just have referred to more people and events I’m unfamiliar with, though.
I was indeed thinking of Rope in my OP (I was recalling Stewart Grainger talking in a recent interview of how he and the other actor had to subtly convey the gay subtext between the two characters, lest the censors catch on to what they were doing), but I thank you for alerting me to Compulsion.
Also, I have heard so many good things about Powers’ writing, but have never read him. I will have to remedy that soon.
Thanks,
Sir Rhosis
**Murder by Numbers ** was also loosely based on Leopold and Loeb (pretty, intelligent, well off teenage boys in a homoerotic/homosexual relationship committing murder for murder’s sake)
I believe the real house was torched one night, right before the property was auctioned off.
Was Open Water* based on any specific incident? When that movie came out, some Dopers who knew about scuba diving confided that diver strandings are not as rare as people think.
Re: Silence of the Lambs
Buffalo Bill was a combination of three serial killers. Ed Gein, as was mentioned. Ted Bundy, who inspired the abduction of Catherine Martin, and another one who kept women in a dungeon in his basement.
Now, why he couldn’t have captured one really fat woman and made a suit, I don’t know.
The factoid that strandings are not rare is actually repeated by one of the ill-fated divers in the movie. Not being a diver myself, I can’t vouch for it one way or the other. But there is definitely a real-life backstory to Open Water, as posted on the Cyber Diver News Network: