Warning: Do not read this if you have a morbid fear of acronyms

We live in times where it doesn’t take too much in the way of paranoid tendencies to view the world we know as a vast cauldron of bubbling stew – a stew filled with malevolent, dangerous and often secret ingredients throwing up a miasma of smoke and reflecting the world through a series of funhouse mirrors, behind which lurk all manner of nefarious and faceless bureaucrats constantly on the prowl, configuring secret plots and recruiting plotters. Like the Trojans, worms and viruses in the virtual world, they lie in wait to strike the unsuspecting. They hide behind the ‘newspeak’ and abbreviations of their secret organisations, societies, government departments, organised criminal gangs and affect us in unknown and unknowing ways. A nasty world indeed.

But spare a thought for those denizens of the secret world of 1960s spy films that mushroomed in the wake of the successes of the first three Bond films. The secret agent/spy film rolled into movie houses like a cinematic tsunami. A world of heroes and villains, plotters and conspirators, villains and arch-villains, goodies and baddies, double agents and triple agents, moles and sleepers. And that’s mostly the men. Female agents and fellow travellers come in an equal number of types – though their form (in all senses of the word) is a somewhat more stabilised (heterosexual) convention. One proof of that pudding is the always anticipated photographic essays that would appear in the rightly named ‘Playboy spread’ featuring fetching images of the ‘Girls of Bond’ with the release of each new film. Rosa Klebb, of course – played by the iconic cabaret artiste and wife of Kurt Weill Lotte Lenya – excepted. Worth noting, but a separate article in itself, is the none-too-subtle practice of the ‘good agent’ converting the misguided female (misguided as to political, cultural, consumerist or sexual proclivities) back to hetero or capitalist normativity through assault, conscience, example or just plain old penis power.

Male villains, on the other hand, are very often ‘othered’ by being depicted as older, disfigured in some physical way or just plain repugnant. Fanatical and megalomaniacal, they are doubly disfigured in mental ways as well. But they make for great baddies, and they and their secret organisations are the focus of this piece. Now while these films depict some ‘good’ government agencies protecting our vested interests, which often have true-life counterparts such as the CIA, FBI, MI5 and 6, KGB, MOSSAD and INTERPOL, there is an equal number of counter-agencies dead set on destroying ‘us’ or controlling ‘us’. They will stop at nothing to de-stabilise and subvert the hegemonic society. Or to simply control access to our earthly pursuits and desires, be it sex, space, mind, food or drugs.

The secret agent/spy/super-criminal narrative in these films may take many forms: the extravagant cinema of excess as in Goldfinger and the Bond franchise – enemies are S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion) and S.M.E.R.S.H. (a Russian acronym that means ‘Death to Spies’) – or the more downbeat mundane world of the government agent as portrayed in the films of the Len Deighton and John Le Carré novels. Then there is the enchanted world of the low-budget, spy’sploitation film – many made in Europe – such as Operation Kid Brother (1967), starring Sean Connery’s lesser-known sibling Neil, or the quasi-serious spy films such as the Matt Helm or Derek Flint movies, or the out-and-out comedy spoof (sure sign of the end of a cycle) as in Fathom (1967) or Le Magnifique (1973). In almost all of these films, the good guy usually acts as deus ex machina in successfully thwarting the evil doings of the baddie and his acronymic organisation. And you gotta love these baddies if only for the sheer novelty of their evil societies and enthralling webs of organised crime or political machinations. But irrespective of their purposes, both sides share one secret obsession above all others: let’s call it acronymania. And the nemeses of altruistic government agencies have some of the best and most revealing. So it is that the men from U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement) have their opposite in the interestingly named T.H.R.U.S.H. (never fleshed out in the television or film series but revealed in a spin-off novel as Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity). Of course, this common enemy was also shared by the short-lived The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., which starred Stephanie Powers as April Dancer.

In the television and film versions of Get Smart! Maxwell Smart of C.O.N.T.R.O.L. had to do battle with K.A.O.S. for five seasons during which, unusually, the acronyms were never revealed. The government men in Carry On Spying (1965) have to contend with agents from S.T.E.N.C.H. (Society for the Total Extinction of Non-Conforming Humans) while in the Morecombe and Wise vehicle The Intelligence Men, the enemy is from Schlecht (a German word for ‘bad’ or ‘ill’). The wondrous Derek Flint, played by 60s favourite James Coburn, works for Z.O.W.I.E. (Zonal Organization World Intelligence Espionage) and lasted for two outings, Our Man Flint (1967) and the lesser In like Flint (1967). The laconic – and ageing – Dean Martin played agent Matt Helm in a trilogy of films. His hands are kept busy working for I.C.E. (Intelligence Counter Espionage) and battling with Big-O (Brotherhood of International Government and Order) in The Silencers, followed by Murderer’s Row (both 1966). Helm returned to the screen in 1967’s The Ambushers and 1968’s The Wrecking Crew – while a fifth instalment, The Ravagers, although announced was never made. Could it be that Big-O triumphed?

Lesser ‘quality’ genre films had just as colourful spy rings, evil agencies, secret criminal gangs, nasty villains and femmes fatales. Tom Adams took the role of Charles Vine in three Bond pastiches: Licensed to Kill (1965), followed by Where the Bullets Fly (1966) and ending with the almost impossible to find Somebody Stole Our Russian Spy aka OK Yevtushenko (1968). Sorry, no acronyms in those, but in the name of inclusion I mention these lesser spy film obscurities. The character of Bulldog Drummond – an early prototype for James Bond – was disinterred from his pre- and immediate post-war jingoistic and chauvinistic British grave by the actor Richard Johnson (who had been considered to play Bond) in, first, Deadlier Than the Male (1966) and then Some Girls Do (1969). It is interesting to observe that all actors originally considered for the part of Bond subsequently appeared in spy films: David Niven, Trevor Howard, Cary Grant, Patrick McGoohan, Richard Todd and James Mason.

A feeble 1966 effort to cash in on the popularity of American Borscht Belt comedians Allen and Rossi was The Last of the Secret Agents, a film that co-starred Nancy Sinatra pitting the G.G.I. agents (Good Guys Institute) against the evil baddies, THEM (no further details provided but clearly not ‘us’). Although the outrageously camp Modesty Blaise (1966) is not strictly a spy film, it does involve a clandestine criminal organisation, The Network, of which Modesty (Mam’selle) is head, and apart from her Colt .32, Modesty Blaise has a secret weapon, you might say, in the form of ‘The Nailer’. Using a cunning trick of stripping off and going topless, she distracts the enemy (nails their attention) while her minions carry out her nefarious plans. Couldn’t be simpler.

Of course, many of these secret agent/secret society scripts, from Bond to Helm to Drummond, originated in literary works. Ted Mark’s satyr-like hero, Steve Victor, The Man from O.R.G.Y. (Organisation for the Rational Guidance of Youth) plied his spy trade over the course of 15 books between 1965 and 1981. Big sellers in their day, they mixed cheeky Bond-like shenanigans with one sexual escapade per chapter, brought about by our spy’s day job as a sexual sociologist and supported by academic funding, which more accurately reflects the true meaning of O.R.G.Y. to Victor: Obtaining Research Grants for Yours truly. Ted Mark’s books took advantage of the post-Tropic of Cancer publishing atmosphere of the sexually liberated 60s, and a new class of erotic spy novels emerged. Other publishers followed with the 34-book Rod ‘The Coxeman’ Damon series. Dr Damon is Head of L.S.D. (League for Sexual Dynamics) and works covertly for the super-secret Thaddeus X. Coxe Foundation. Tim O’Shane is the fictional Man from T.O.M.C.A.T. (Tactical Operations Master Counterintelligence Assault Team) and lasted for nine outings between 1967 and 1971. There was also The Lady from L.U.S.T. (League of Undercover Spies and Terrorists), whose enemy was H.A.T.E. (the Humanitarian Alliance of Total Espionage), and The Man from S.T.U.D. (Special Territories and Unique Development), who dated The Girl from W.I.L.L.N.G. (Western Integrated Long Lease Insurance Nonpayment Group). You get the idea! I leave it to readers to decode the acronyms of some other series that emerged in the light of the Cold War and spymania: The Miss from S.I.S., The Man from S.A.D.I.S.T.O., The Man from P.A.N.S.Y. and The Girl from H.A.R.D. In terms of sales though, it was The Man from O.R.G.Y. who topped the poles (no pun intended of course). Most of these acronym-led secret adventure series were optioned by the studios and were considered for film adaptations to cash in on the boom, but once again, among this lot it was Ted Mark’s man who was translated into celluloid with the 1970 release of The Man from O.R.G.Y. aka The Real Gone Girls, directed by James Hill (Born Free, Worzel Gummidge Black Beauty) with a script written by Mark himself and starring Robert Walker Jr. (Easy Rider) as Steve Victor.

So, now that the Wall is down, and the Commies brought to heel, it is reassuring to know that many of the above clandestine secret agencies have likewise passed into history and can now be revealed. As can another little known state secret: Electric S.H.E.E.P. is a secret sleeper organisation whose acronym means Electric Society for the Halting of Effusive and Excessive Praise.

This article will self-destruct in 10 seconds. Good luck, Jim.

James Evans

The story has a few variations, but goes much like this: Prince Albert Victor was Queen Victoria’s grandson, and second in line to the throne. He secretly married a Catholic shop-girl named Anne Crook, and they had a daughter, Alice. This was not the sort of thing a Royal should be doing, and when Victoria found out, the Prince was whisked away, and Anne locked up.

Unfortunately Anne’s fellow shop-girl, Mary Jane Kelly, knew the whole story. Down on her luck in Spitalfields, Kelly turned to prostitution. She and three others tried to blackmail the Prince’s friend, the artist Walter Sickert. He told the Royals, and the Royals took steps to silence the blackmailers.

This is where the Masons came in. The elderly Sir William Gull, Physician to the Queen and high-ranking Freemason, was entrusted with the task of silencing this threat to the throne. With coachman John Netley, and the collusion of fellow Masons including Sir Charles Warren, head of the Metropolitan Police, Gull tracked down and murdered the four women, and one more for good measure. These, of course, were the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper. Perhaps unwisely, Gull chose to silence them in the most public way imaginable. He mutilated the victims in ways that had (alleged) Masonic significance, and left graffiti with (alleged) Masonic clues disguised as anti-Semitic slurs: ‘The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing.’ ‘Juwes’ apparently referred to three apprentice masons who murdered the architect of Solomon’s Temple. It’s been denied that the word ‘Juwes’ has any significance in Masonic ritual, although Masonic denials should be taken with a pinch of salt.

The source for this amazing story was one Joseph Sickert, allegedly the illegitimate son of Walter Sickert. His mother was none other than Alice Crook, the product of the secret royal marriage. Sickert told his story to (among others) a journalist named Stephen Knight, and the book that followed, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution (1976), popularised the theory. Knight’s research is sloppy, and he apparently ignored evidence that disproved his findings (for instance, Gull and other conspirators probably weren’t Masons at all). He falls into the classic conspiracist’s trap of assuming that a lack of supporting evidence is proof of a cover-up, rather than proof of the evidence never having existed in the first place. Knight’s not-so-final solution has been comprehensively discredited.

In its heyday, though, the theory caught the public imagination. The 1970s was the era of conspiracies. Government cover-ups and complicity in crime, from Watergate to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, was taken as read. It was also a time when Britain’s Victorian pomp was being regarded with increasing suspicion. But above all, this was an exciting, fun solution to a famous unsolved murder case. The few credible Ripper suspects were obscure and rather dull. It’s not difficult to see why a conspiracy theory that has the entire Victorian establishment colluding in the murder of five lowly prostitutes is more appealing than any of the more sensible theories. We’d feel let down if he was just another East End nobody.

Two films and a TV mini-series have used the Gull theory to varying extents. Murder by Decree (Bob Clark, 1979) pits Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper. The Great Detective’s investigations into the Ripper’s crimes lead him more or less to Knight’s conclusions. Oddly, Gull and Netley are renamed Spivey and Slade (other historical characters keep their real names). Spivey/Gull is shown as a near-catatonic child-man with no responsibility for his actions, with Slade/Netley as unlikely prime mover. The Masons feature heavily, with Charles Warren (a blustery Anthony Quayle) obediently covering everything up. The conspiracy loses some of its power, though, as the government is simply protecting over-enthusiastic Masonic hitmen, rather than ordering the crimes itself.

It’s an odd film, and not a terribly good one. Director Clark had previously made good low-budget horror movies in the US and Canada (Black Christmas, 1974; Deathdream, 1974), and it’s disappointing that this feels so much like a TV movie. Christopher Plummer is too bouffant and humane as Holmes (although James Mason is an excellent Watson) and the 1970s all-star cast indulges in some dreadful over-acting.

Although the Masonic angle is given a lot of screen time (with Holmes explaining the significance of the Juwes to a sceptical Watson), there’s no real sense that it drives the plot. It’s just a picturesque detail. The film’s main fault is the lack of detection – we’re never told how Holmes figures everything out, nor where his convenient knowledge of Freemasonry comes from. The film lumbers on for 20 minutes after its climax to allow Holmes to explain what happened. There’s also an odd subplot about anarchists, led by rogue cop David Hemmings, who know who the Ripper is and why he’s killing his victims. The very thing the conspiracy is designed to cover up is somehow already common knowledge among the government’s enemies, which makes it all seem a bit pointless and petty.

What Murder by Decree did successfully was add a few more tropes to Jack the Ripper cinema. Ripper films could already be relied on to include fog, gas lamps, comedy cockneys and happy hookers. After Murder by Decree, unruly mobs, police cover-ups, psychic visions and sinister black coaches were thrown into the mix.

1988 saw Jack the Ripper (David Wickes), a centenary mini-series produced by Granada. This also fingers Gull, but does away with any Royal or Masonic connection, without which his candidacy makes little sense. Its abandonment of the conspiracy angle makes it of only tangential interest (Granada was playing it very safe in the late 80s, perhaps wary of upcoming changes to ITV franchising laws). It ladles on the usual Ripper ingredients and, perhaps most importantly, it gives Ripper pop culture its hero, Inspector Fred Abberline.

A real historical figure, Abberline was well known to Ripperology (Knight makes him part of the cover-up). But in Jack the Ripper, Michael Caine played him as a boozy Victorian version of Regan from The Sweeney; this really put Abberline on the map. When Alan Moore wrote the graphic novel From Hell, he cast Abberline as his confused everyman hero. From Hell (art by Eddie Campbell, 1991-1996) is the ultimate Ripper conspiracy story. It draws in almost all the important strands of Ripper lore, concocting a huge, overarching conspiracy in which even time itself is complicit.

Perhaps wisely, the film version of From Hell (Albert and Allen Hughes, 2001) doesn’t try to cram all of Moore’s ideas into its two-hour running time. Although there are some snippets of Moore’s dialogue, and the occasional shot taken from Campbell’s art, it’s more a remake of the Granada mini-series or Murder by Decree than an adaptation of the comic. Many of its details are from those sources rather than Moore (angry mobs, black coaches, psychic visions etc). It’s more of a conventional Ripper movie than it wants to admit, in spite of the directors’ stated intention to emphasise the social injustice and hypocrisy of Victorian London. This is the most socially aware Ripper film – even before Gull starts his gory work the prostitutes are in mortal danger from a gang of local pimps.

From Hell uses the Masonic angle more than Murder by Decree, even showing a minor villain going through an induction ceremony (disappointingly, this sequence doesn’t have the same fetishised attention to detail that the film lavishes on the preparation of absinthe or opium smoking). This scene features a Masonic meeting hall under London, from where the world is ruled by evil aristocrats in funny costumes. The film could have done with more of that. As it is, the emphasis is very much on Abberline (Johnny Depp) as the classic ‘man who knows too much’, and his unconvincing romance with Mary Kelly. A scene in which Abberline learns all the Masons’ secrets from a book in a seemingly public library makes you wonder why the film uses the Masons at all. If they can’t even guard their basic rituals from public exposure, how effective a secret society are they?

That’s the problem with these Masonic Ripper movies. The fact that it’s the Masons, as opposed to any other shady organisation, is largely irrelevant. They’re prominent in Joseph Sickert’s original tall tale, and Stephen Knight was obsessed with them. Alan Moore weaves the Masons’ gloss of mysticism into From Hell reasonably well. But while filmmakers have gratefully seized on the visual trappings of Masonry for an easy way to identify the villains – a ring here, a tiepin there – there’s never any sense that it has to be the Masons as opposed to, say, the Illuminati, or even Fu Manchu. The Ripper is now inextricably tied to conspiracy theory, despite the best efforts of credible researchers; but as far as the movies go, it doesn’t seem to matter which conspiracy theory.

Richard Bancroft