But this is the most compelling case for one that I have ever noticed. Please, if you haven't seen the excellent movie "Heavenly Creatures" — directed by Peter Jackson, starring Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey — don't click forward. Watch the movie first! I know you won't. You've gone this long without seeing it. And what a story. You might as well click through.
"Anne Perry, Crime Writer With Her Own Dark Tale, Dies at 84/She was well into her career as a prolific author of historical crime fiction when a murderous past was publicly revealed and dramatized in a 1994 movie" (NYT).When Juliet’s parents decided to divorce and leave New Zealand, the girls came up with a solution to avoid being separated: murder Pauline’s mother. In Victoria Park, in Christchurch, the girls — Pauline was 16, Juliet was 15 — struck Honorah Parker in the head repeatedly with half a brick wrapped in a stocking.
The trial was a sensation, much of it focusing on Juliet and Pauline’s absorption with each other and their fantasies about becoming famous novelists. Both young women were convicted of murder, and after five years behind bars (in separate prisons) they were given new identities and instructed never to meet again. If they violated that order, they were warned, they would return to prison and serve life sentences.
Both of Juliet’s parents remarried; Ms. Perry’s new surname came from her stepfather....
The headline on the film review in The Times was “Fantasies and a Love That Led to Murder.” Newspaper reports at the time hinted at a lesbian romance between the two friends, employing the same discreet tone as Juliet’s father in the film, when he expressed concern about “a rather unwholesome attachment.”
Ms. Perry told The New Zealand Herald in 2006 that the relationship had been obsessive but not sexual....
Once her murder conviction was revealed, Ms. Perry did not shy away from acknowledging her guilt. She excused herself only by saying that she had been afraid that if she did not go along with the murder plan, her distraught friend might kill herself. ...
“In a sense it’s not a matter — at the end — of judging,” she said in [a] documentary. “I did this much good and that much bad. Which is the greater?”
“It’s in the end, Who am I? Am I somebody that can be trusted? Am I someone that is compassionate, gentle, patient, strong?... It’s who you are when time’s up that matters.”
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32 comments:
I’m not sure about the title.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_premature_obituaries
Very confusing post for someone with no prior knowledge of this woman.
I had to deep dive into
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker%E2%80%93Hulme_murder_case
just to make sense of it.
In high school my best friend's stepfather was molesting her. Our closeness eventually saved her, because he could frame her rejection as a result of our lesbian relationship. We were only friends, but any time two women (or girls, in this case) show closeness, culture defines it as sexual.
Never in our wildest dreams did we consider killing him.
Jackson, Winslet, and Lynskey all started their very successful careers in this movie. I don't remember liking it.
"Heavenly Creatures" is one of my favorite movies. For those of us who love it, it's significant news that Anne Perry has died.
For anyone who hasn't even seen this movie, you may be interested to know about this death if you read mystery books or if you remember hearing about this murder when Anne Perry's real identity was revealed back when the movie came out in 1994. If it's all news to you, then, yes, this post is hard to follow, Wilbur, but you did the obvious thing, didn't you? You went to Wikipedia for a more elementary presentation. I'm interested in a new obituary and giving this material to people who aren't starting at square one. You know, it's always easy to do your own research to catch up on background.
Leland, I have no idea what problem you have with the title. A premature obituary would not need a spoiler alert. I'm concerned about spoiling the experience of watching a particular movie.
Your blog post reminded me of a 2017 movie starring Shirley MacLaine, "The Last Word", about an old woman who sees what her obituary is going to be and sets about changing it while she still can. Unlike this one, the movie is a comedy.
I've never heard before of a court ruling that if two people meet again, they will both be returned to prison. Does the court have that kind of jurisdiction? What happens if they bump into each other at an airport? How would that be enforced?
I haven't seen the movie, and from the description in Wikipedia it's not my cup of tea. But I don't see how five years for a premeditated murder is a just sentence.
I saw it when it came out decades ago. Winslet was a teenager. An excellent movie.
If you haven't seen this movie, you ought to consider doing so. I loved it. Going into the cinema, I remember thinking "there sure are a lot of women in this audience, what's this movie about?"
"You never see a spoiler alert on a obituary?"
Well, there was this special one. "You came seeking . . . the One who was crucified. He is gone. He has risen."
I saw "Heavenly Creatures" a long time ago, and I remember bits of it. I forgot that it was Peter Jackson's first critically-acclaimed movie. I actually enjoyed "Bad Taste" and...umm...got through "Meet the Feebles", but those two earlier movies (and "Dead Alive") are nothing like "Heavenly Creatures".
I often think these days that strange phenomena like the huge increase in gender dysphoria and suicide among teen-age girls are being caused by some jagged adult event becoming stuck in the understanding of a child. The child feels as her own the emotions of people overwhelmed, possibly only temporarily, by a job loss or a move or Covid changes or a divorce. The woman moves on but the girl does not. It has been said that these phenomena are caused by iphones and their impact on how girls see themselves but I think inner events are selecting for attention similar outer events or situations. But it isn't "similar" as in young adult fiction where it is supposed that a child whose parents are getting a divorce reads a story about a child whose parents are getting a divorce and feels better. It's similar as in "this is grotesque and that is grotesque"; "I feel weird, what if weirdly I wasreally a boy [and didn't feel things as much?]"
"Leland, I have no idea what problem you have with the title. A premature obituary would not need a spoiler alert. I'm concerned about spoiling the experience of watching a particular movie."
Maybe this has something to do with the way life itself lacks a spoiler alert. To anyone who is not a very young child, the ending has been spoiled: We are all going to die.
Is that why you brought up reports of the death of people who haven't yet died? They "spoil" the ending... that's some kind of joke about the "revelation" that a person will, in the end, die?
This is a very subtle joke, Leland, so I want to make sure I'm not undervaluing your comment.
“In a sense it’s not a matter — at the end — of judging,” she said in [a] documentary. “I did this much good and that much bad. Which is the greater?”
This view is the opposite of cancel culture.
As I recall the movie, it made madness look like fun -- until it went dark and murderous. The closeness of the characters made me think of Kate and Melanie as linked somehow. It's interesting how the two actresses went on to have such different lives and careers. I'd like to see them together in a film again.
The confusion I got in that snippet is I couldn't initially tell which one became Anne Perry.
'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_premature_obituaries'
Beats premature incineration every time...
You never see a spoiler alert on an obituary.
Or a trigger warning. I mean, you might just be finding out someone you know died.
Like Oprah. Or one of the Obamas.
Someone really, really close to you.
"This is a very subtle joke, Leland, so I want to make sure I'm not undervaluing your comment."
It's thirty seconds over Tokyo, OK? You fly your route, you drop your bombs, then it's on to the next burning city. Don't read too much into it.
She excused herself only by saying that she had been afraid that if she did not go along with the murder plan, her distraught friend might kill herself. ...
Well, Okey-dokey. Glad she was so kind-hearted. Although the murder victim and those who loved her might disagree.
""Heavenly Creatures" is one of my favorite movies."
It sounds appalling. I really don't understand why so many people take such evident enjoyment in movies about innocent people getting brutally murdered. I try to think that it's an attempt to deal with threatening situations by analyzing them. But I can't escape the suspicion that it's really about taking vicarious pleasure in crimes one lacks the courage or opportunity to commit. I mean, they spend a lot of money getting the violence just right. The blood, the awful sounds, the agonized expressions. The experience of it all. Snuff flicks, is what they are. Murder porn.
A fascinating movie. I think I've only seen it once, shortly after it came out, but certain scenes have really stuck with me. There's a scene where the girls assign "code pronouns" to their favorite male movie stars. I forget who "he" and "him" were, but a glowering Orson Welles was "IT". I have a replica on my wall of an original poster for Citizen Kane that features the tag line "Everybody's talking about it! It's terrific! So I'm reminded of Heavenly Creatures all the time.
When Peter Jackson was announced as the director for the three Lord of the Rings movies, it was a bit of a shock. His filmography consisted of a couple of very gory horror movies, a couple of oddball indie projects (puppet black comedy, TV documentary), Heavenly Creatures, and a box office bomb supernatural comedy starring Michael J Fox(I eventually saw The Frighteners; it was fun). And I thought: him? Heavenly Creatures was great but now they're giving that guy potentially studio killing amounts of money (Cleopatra money!) to make The Lord of the Rings? All three movies at once? Crazy.
I remember that this revelation came out back in the '90s, when I was hooked on Anne Perry's Victorian murder series. I recall checking out her latest book at San Francisco's Mechanics' Institute library and the ancient librarian (a man) leaning forward and croaking slowly, "MUR-DER-ESS." Like something in one of her own novels.
The confusion results from the strange juxtaposition of Juliet’s parents’s contemplating divorce, and the plan to kill Pauline’s mother as a solution. WTF? That fact suggests that Pauline had an agenda unrelated to Juliet’s departure.
I can understand Anne's shame here (though I've never killed anyone) and her discomfort with discussing this.
Her outcome here has me struggle with my support for the death penalty. But I still support the death penalty.
Reading about the crime on the internet, it seems that Ann Perry (then Juliet) was the instigator of the murder. It’s kind of creepy that she went on to spend her days writing crime novels. Maybe it was a way to exorcise her demons without harming others.
Whatever happened to Pauline Parker?
written in 1997 with several typos.
http://adamabrams.com/hc/faq2/library/7.9.5.1.html
Reminds me a bit of the Brontë sisters but darker.
Blogger Jupiter said...
"I mean, they spend a lot of money getting the violence just right. The blood, the awful sounds, the agonized expressions. The experience of it all. Snuff flicks, is what they are. Murder porn."
There are movies that fit this description, and I find them repulsive. Heavenly Creatures is not one of them. Not by a long shot.
Blogger Jupiter said...
"I mean, they spend a lot of money getting the violence just right. The blood, the awful sounds, the agonized expressions. The experience of it all. Snuff flicks, is what they are. Murder porn."
There are movies that fit this description, and I find them repulsive. Heavenly Creatures is not one of them. Not by a long shot.
She isn’t sorry at all. She should have stayed behind bars. Maybe someone should have bashed her head in with a brick.
There’s a documentary available on Amazon Prime Video for 2.99 called Reflections of the Past that’s fairly good.
There’s this website that has a lot of additional info: https://www.adamabrams.com/hc/
The girls were sentenced to life (but at the discretion of the authorities). They were released after 5 years with the condition of their parole being that they never communicate with each other. Hilary (Pauline) spent an inordinate amount of time in libraries. What if they found comfort in living as close as they could within the terms of their parole - they lived less than 100 miles of each other (I’ve read but haven’t checked). And what if every one of Anne’s 100+ books was a letter to Hilary (Pauline).
Apparently when the reporter contacted Hilary (Pauline), she decided to sell her cottage and stables. These are the murals she left behind. Would this be the art of a repentant Roman Catholic?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/29018755@N04/sets/72157622146971428/
"It sounds appalling. I really don't understand why so many people take such evident enjoyment in movies about innocent people getting brutally murdered."
It's not really about that. It's about 2 young people forming a very strong and creative (but weird) friendship and the parents' disapproval.
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