Re: RE : RARA-AVIS: robert bloch based norman bates on woolrich?

From: William Ahearn ( williamahearn@yahoo.com)
Date: 10 Feb 2008


--- Fabienne soldini < fabsoldini@yahoo.fr> wrote:

> And [Bloch and Woolrich] created the caracter of
"serial killer",
> which became very important in the crime novel since
> the nineteen's. Norman Bates is the first one most
> "popular", more famous serial killer (not called
> like that in the fifteen's)in litt鲡ture and in
> cinema .

Not so fast. The concept of serial killer goes back to Victorian London and Jack the Ripper. It's safe to assume that Jack wasn't the first. Sweeney Todd certainly comes to mind. As for films, Hitchcock's The Lodger (1927) and Fritz Lang's M (1931) were the earliest films about serial killers and 1932's Doctor X was released in the US. Michael Powell's Peeping Tom was also ahead of Psycho by a year. Stop me before I go on. Researching this stuff lately. BTW, the term serial killer was coined in Paris after the war by French critics . . . no, it was in the 1970s by a profiler and a shrink and they dispute which one of them came up with it. They too argue about definitions
. . .

William

Essays and Ramblings
<http://www.williamahearn.com>

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