Devil in a White City

[Advocate]

I personally cannot wait for this to hit the big screen. I read the book and was totally enamored with it. In one sense it was about the Chicago World Fair from 1893. And at the same time it told the tale of America's FIRST serial killer, HH Holmes. It was written by Erik Larson, no not the artist different spelling. Well, now its being made (finally) into a movie. The actor attached?

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One could argue that Leonardo DiCaprio has yet to play a truly villainous character. The star of Inception has finally found a serial killer to challenge his skills. DiCaprio will portray HH Holmes in an adaptation of The Devil in the White City.

Erik Larson’s non-fiction book tells the legendary story of a serial killer who terrorized Chicago’s World Fair of 1893. Before his death in 1896, Holmes admitted to a number of murders. His charm helped bring countless women into what he called The World’s Fair Hotel – eventually known as the murder castle. The exact total for his victim count has varied from 27 to 200 since then.

Leonardo DiCaprio is the perfect fit for this role. His combination of charm and terror should be seamless and if he plays his cards right, this could be to DiCaprio’s career what Once Upon A Time In The West was to Henry Fonda’s. For the latter, director Sergio Leone convinced Fonda to take the role of a villain because it would shock the world to see a man known for his heroic characters on the other side.

DiCaprio’s recent rush of roles with inner torment continues with Devil in the White City. It takes the endless dedication of a performer like DiCaprio to truly pull of these roles. For instance, whatever Vince Vaughn lacked as Norman Bates in Psycho, DiCaprio is more than able to replace with this serial killer.


Beyond DiCaprio, the overall tale of HH Holmes is fascinating. Appian Way and Double Features will distribute the film after a flurry of praise for the novel. Executives for both companies shared some thoughts on the [COLOR=#999999 ! important][COLOR=#999999 ! important]film[/COLOR][/COLOR] in a statement via Deadline.

“[The book is] truly a one-of-its-kind American story about our nation’s first serial killer. We’re exited to bring it to the big screen.”
“This is a big, entertaining thriller in an incredible setting that will appeal to worldwide audience.”

In addition, Chicago will be featured prominently with this film. We’ve seen the city’s dark side with a few gangster movies over the years, but this should shed new light (or darkness) on the Windy City. It is as much about a single man as it is about the fear he spread through one of the most popular events in the world at the turn of the 20th century.


But in the end, it is a film about HH Holmes’ infamous murders and again, DiCaprio has yet to play a truly villainous character. Mind you, morally questionable characters are not really villainous. The closest DiCaprio ever came to playing a villain in his career was Man in the Iron Mask. Needless to say, he needs a better bad guy.


Some would say J. Edgar Hoover is close. DiCaprio will portray the FBI director in Clint Eastwood’s upcoming biopic Hoover.


Regardless, Devil In The White City is exciting in every possible way. It has been shuffled around Hollywood for a few years now, even skimming through Tom Cruise’s radar during the book’s initial popularity. DiCaprio is a fantastic choice and his schedule over the next few years should churn out a much-deserved Oscar soon enough.


What do you think of DiCaprio as HH Holmes? Discuss the choice and the book itself in the comments section below.

No further info has been made, but if this is true ... more cannot be far behind.

[Doc Holliday]

Day one?

[Advocate]

Definitely day one for me.

[Doc Holliday]

Also Holy Shit @ Hoover!

and this:

Holmes purchased a lot across from the drugstore, where he built his three-story, block-long "Castle"—as it was dubbed by those in the neighborhood. It was opened as a hotel for the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, with part of the structure used as commercial space. The ground floor of the Castle contained Holmes's own relocated drugstore and various shops, while the upper two floors contained his personal office and a maze of over one hundred windowless rooms with doorways opening to brick walls, oddly angled hallways, stairways to nowhere, doors openable only from the outside, and a host of other strange and labyrinthine constructions. Holmes repeatedly changed builders during the construction of the Castle so only he fully understood the design of the house, thus decreasing the chance of being reported to the police.[6]

After the completion of the hotel, Holmes selected mostly female victims from among his employees (many of whom were required as a condition of employment to take out life insurance policies for which Holmes would pay the premiums but also be the beneficiary), lovers and hotel guests, torturing and killing them.[5] Some were locked in soundproof bedrooms fitted with gas lines that let him asphyxiate them at any time. Some victims were locked in a huge soundproof bank vault near his office where they were left to suffocate.[7] The victims' bodies were dropped by secret chute to the basement,[6] where some were meticulously dissected, stripped of flesh, crafted into skeleton models, and then sold to medical schools. Holmes also cremated some of the bodies or placed them in lime pits for destruction. Holmes had two giant furnaces as well as pits of acid, bottles of various poisons, and even a stretching rack. Through the connections he had gained in medical school, he sold skeletons and organs with little difficulty.

wiki

Following the World's Fair, with creditors closing in and the economy in a general slump, Holmes left Chicago. He reappeared in Fort Worth, Texas, where he had inherited property from two railroad heiress sisters, to one of whom he had promised marriage and both of whom he murdered. There he sought to construct another castle along the lines of his Chicago operation. However, he soon abandoned this project, finding the law enforcement climate in Texas inhospitable.

LOL

[Advocate]

Doc, you should read the book. Its real good.