Frank Grillo · World's Fair · Jimmy Savile
Plus: An object lesson in how *not* to write about a school molestation scandal
the true crime that's worth your time
Hulu’s Devil in the White City series is dunzo. We’ve been kicking news of the planned adaptation of Erik Larson’s 2003 H.H. Holmes-themed novel around for a while: as The Hollywood Reporter notes, it was first announced over a decade ago as a feature film directed by Martin Scorsese and with Leonardo DiCaprio as its star.
In the years since, that plan has evolved — understandable given the epic task of adapting the book, which marries a storyline about real-life architect Daniel Hudson Burnham (which, check out his real-life mustache) with that of the arguably tiresome Holmes, a real-life killer whose real-life crimes are so exhaustingly vile that even 130 years later, it still doesn’t feel terribly appealing to linger on the visuals.
Eventually, the project landed at Disney-owned (what isn’t?) Hulu, with Scorsese and DiCaprio — who first optioned the book in 2010, after Tom Cruise (!) allowed the option to lapse — named as producers. Last fall we heard that, finally, things were full steam ahead: Keanu Reeves would play Burnham, and Todd Field would direct.
Fast forward a few months. Field had just started to bask in the glory of Tár, a critical and awards sensation released just weeks after the DitWC announcement. But Reeves was out. Three days later, so was Field.
Anonymous sources (so, grain of salt) apparently told THR that Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) and Jude Law had been approached to star (who would be who?) and that “ABC Signature is still in talks with White, Law and director [Matt] Ross for the series, though it’s unclear if they will close given the fact that Devil does not currently have a home.”
Look, I think White is fine, but just because people like how he plays a Chicago sandwich guy does not mean he has to be in every Chicago-related property from here on out. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to throw the towel in on turning this book into an on-screen property? I’m not saying that it’s cursed, as that’s a term I reserve for real estate. But I do think that some books don’t make for great TV or film adaptations — I’m sure y’all have some in mind, too — and that’s OK! Maybe we just let this one rest for a while. — EB
After the relentless Americana of DitWC, let’s turn to the UK to see what true crime properties they have in the works.
BBC investigates true crime gold heist doc from Bohemia Films [TBI]
The Gold: The Inside Story will be an hour-long TV documentary about “Britain’s biggest bullion heist,” and we are not talking about soup!
The Brink’s-Mat robbery, which I am learning about as I type this, was a 1983 warehouse robbery that snagged about £26 million in 1983 money (according to this online calculator, that’s £112,251,684 today, or $129,482,318 U.S. at today’s exchange rate) in gold bullion, diamonds, and cash. Expect interviews with the cops on the case. “archive footage and eyewitness testimony.” Release date has yet to be announced. — EB
Dublin's 'GPO Girl' fraudster examined in true-crime documentary [Irish Central]
Con Girl is a difficult-to-google (no, I did not mean “Gone Girl,” sheesh) four-part docuseries about Australian con artist Samantha Azzopardi, who first made headlines in 2013 for pretending to be a sex-trafficking victim. She was most recently sentenced in 2021 for seemingly abducting two children in her care.
The BBC has a solid roundup of many of the allegations against her, many crimes for which there’s no clear financial gain. officials seem stumped on how to move forward on a case against her — so many of the things she does seem to be related to mental illness, yet they also seem to involve high-level functioning and well-being that could belie that diagnosis. Anyway, Con Girl (which has been positively reviewed) is on Paramount+ in the UK, but has yet to reach U.S. streaming services as far as I can tell. — EB
The BBC Hasn’t Buried Jimmy Savile True Crime Series ‘The Reckoning’ Just Yet [IndieWire]
We’ve discussed the controversy around The Reckoning before, but it’s been a bit. So here’s a recap: in 2020, the BBC announced that it was planning a dramatic adaptation of the Jimmy Savile case, the nationally-known Top of the Pops host who has been credibly accused of a decades-long series of sexual assaults of children, an alleged pattern that was only brought to light after his death in 2012, at the age of 84.
The response was swift and to be expected, given the multitudes of survivors. “Our Trauma Is Not Your Entertainment,” read a blistering statement from one assault survivors’ advocacy group, which noted the BBC’s alleged culpability in Savile’s crimes.
Star Steve Coogan, who was set to play Savile, defended his decision to take the part, saying that “you need to look at someone like that to understand how they’re able to operate and to prevent it happening again.” Filming wrapped at the end of 2022, but last month, British tabloid The Sun quoted an anonymous source (see, salt!) as saying the series had been delayed due to the continuing backlash.
But according to a BBC spokesperson, that’s not true. In fact, “We are currently in post-production for transmission later this year,” a spokesperson said. “An exact date will be announced in due course.” But what I’m wondering is what that title is about! If Savile was dead when his crimes were made public, what reckoning can there possibly be? Is the BBC the ones doing the titular reckoning? — EB
This brings me to an item that is the Best Evidence version of my taking leftovers from the fridge and waving them beneath your nose. “This stinks!” I say to you. “Smell it!” All this to say that if me being negative is something you’re not up for today, scroll on down to the Frank Grillo piece below, where I am a lot more fun. Otherwise, get comfy.
So the San Francisco Standard is fairly new general-interest online news outlet that covers SF, ostensibly a for-profit operation that’s funded by angry (and factually dodgy) anti-crime op-ed author and venture capitalist Michael Moritz. It’s hired a number of reputable local journalists over its short years, then hit a bit of a snag when it parted ways with its EIC, but replaced him with a promising possibility last month. (Disclosure: a head hunter approached me as a possible candidate for the EIC job, but I didn’t enter the interview stage.)
Some of that promise was dashed for me this week when I read “SF Principal: Molestation Case ‘Devastated’ Our School for Years,” an article that centers the workers at a school that employed an eventually-convicted serial child sexual assailant, instead of focusing on the survivors or the survivors’ fellow students.
It’s an extremely strange story that’s circled, often with anger and disgust, in several of my text groups in the last day, with many asking (rhetorically) why this was written (because a PR person for the school district proposed it, speculated one fellow journalist). And how did it make it online without anyone stopping to ask why on earth it’s OK to spend so many words on workers at a school that was sued, at least twice, by victims of the assailant — suits apparently credible enough that the city settled both without going to court.
Here’s a snip. It stinks. Smell it:
Students, teachers and other employees at a San Francisco middle school took years to recover from feelings of guilt and fear that began to unfold after a seventh grade girl was found crying at school, the principal said.
That incident, as well as information from other children who also came forward, led to the arrest of physical education teacher Donavan Harper on charges of lewd acts with a minor by use of force.
It also left campuswide wounds among teachers ashamed that they didn’t detect the abuse earlier and children who were afraid something like that could happen to them.
“There was a tremendous strain on our teachers and staff for years,” said Michael Essien, principal at Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Middle School in the Bayview, in reference to the 2017 incident that launched an extended crisis.
Guilt-stricken school employees blamed themselves. Campus leaders had to cancel professional development meetings, give people time off and hold listening sessions with staff and students.
I think I know what happened here, or at least, I can guess. I think that this was an attempt at a story on how a case like this has a ripple effect of harm beyond the assailant and victim, that violent crimes infect and impact a whole community. That’s a good and worthy point to make, but one that has to be made while placing people who are primarily harmed — the victims and perhaps their immediate family, as in this case we’re talking about minors — front and center.
They deserve as many — if not more — column inches than the people who worked in the same workplace as the convicted assailant. They’re truly the ones who will be carrying this for years and years, not the principal of the school, who was uncritically quoted as saying that “it didn’t happen to just those girls” while expressing his personal trauma. Because, guess what? It kind of did.
A straw man speaks up from the front row, and asks “but what if you can’t get the victim or their family to speak with you?” Great question, Scarecrow! I knew that diploma would pan out for you one day. In that case, I’m sorry, but then I think you have to sit on the “why an assailant’s colleagues are upset” story until you have some actual survivor interviews and angles to balance the school principal’s trauma out.
Because otherwise, you end up suggesting by their absence that the important people in this story are the adults with jobs and positions of power, not the vulnerable students victimized by a predator so apparently crafty that no one at the school ever suspected.
It’s one thing to tell a story where the suspect is centered — we see that a lot, and while that shouldn’t be the only way true crime stories are told, it’s an instructive way, as it does help us understand possible root causes, the strategies of predators, and sometimes, the face of evil. There’s a way to do that and to avoid marginalizing the victims. That doesn’t always happen, but for the most part, I think the creators of that content try.
But it’s another thing to skate right past the direct victims to ask an audience to mourn for the bystanders. That’s what we’re seeing here, from a well-funded news organization with an ostensible motive of doing good. For the last day, I’ve thought about how the victims of the assailant must have felt if or when they saw this story, one that suggests that the assailant’s co-workers deserve more of a voice than they do. I can’t imagine it feels good. — EB
I have more patience with Frank Grillo than Sarah does, I suspect. His turn as a (spoiler) Hydra agent who gets his ass kicked by Captain American in an elevator is a lot of fun, and he is wining enough in time loop action movie Boss Level that I am alllllllmost able to forgive the presence of known deeply problematic person Mel Gibson in the cast. Almost.
But can we forgive him for playing, as he does in upcoming horror film The Resurrection of Charles Manson, a cult leader intent on resurrecting Charles Manson? Per People, which claims the “exclusive” on this gem:
The trailer for the film teases an aspiring actress who recruits her boyfriend to help her film an audition for a fictional Charles Manson movie and rents "an eclectic desert Airbnb as the perfect backdrop" for the audition, according to an official synopsis for the film.
After their arrival, they are confronted by home invaders, including Grillo's cult leader, whose sinister plans appear to include making a sacrifice in order to bring Manson, who died in 2017 at 83, back to life.
According to the film's synopsis, the "dark events of the audition material slowly slip into their reality" as the young couple are tossed into the cult's "sinister plot."
Obviously, the connection here to true crime as we consider it is stretched past the breaking point, which to me is just to the south of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (OMG guys it all comes back to DiCaprio). And then there’s the nepo baby connection, as the film’s director is Remy, Grillo’s 26-year-old son.
"Having the opportunity to make this film was one of the highlights of my career thus far, and to be able to work with my Dad made it that much better," the younger Grillo told People, which, here’s his career thus far so his quote is likely true!
And I don’t dislike this quote, also from the younger Grillo, that “There is a dangerously close relevance between Manson's ideology and today's political and social atmosphere, and we believe it is time to resurrect the conversation.” As long as he’s talking about the folks I disagree with, hooray.
Finally, though, I think this movie will probably be a fine addition to the “resurrecting real life bad guys” genre, which includes Hellboy (Rasputin), Look Who’s Back (Hitler), Chemical Wedding (arguably con man Aleister Crowley) and others. Sure, why not? — EB
Wednesday on Best Evidence: More on unadaptable properties.
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