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Victorian England: At first glance the country thrived, the British
Empire was the largest of the world, industrialisation brought new wealth,
scientific breakthroughs were pretty much a dime a dozen ... but success
and wealth were not for all, there was a big chasm between the classes,
with the working class and below being left completely out of the Empire's
success story. Amelia Dyer, born 1837, was comparatively well off, she
had been properly schooled and was working as a nurse - a hard job in her
time, well regarded and not without its perks. Through her job she got
into contact with a midwife, who taught her about the methods of baby
farming, accepting illegitimately conceived babies, promising to act as
agents for their adoption ... against a nice sum of money of course, as
single mothers back then were stigmatized, so they'd give anything to get
rid of their offspring. Thing is, these babies weren't always really
handed over to foster parents but more likely just starved to death ... Eventually,
after giving birth to a daughter and after the death of her husband,
Amelia saw herself in dire need of money, and saw baby farming as the most
practical way of getting a good income ... that is until the authorities
got wise to her, and she was arrested, but convicted only for neglect of
her latest dead baby and sent to six months of hard labour. Back in
society, she picked up where she left off, but soon discovered involving
doctors for the death certificates of the babies in her care was no longer
the way to go, and she thus started strangling them and getting rid of the
bodies, which was lower on risk and more cost effective. A couple of
times, she almost got caught but feigned a mental breakdown each time -
and as a former asylum nurse, she knew how to have a nice time at the
asylum. However she had to travel all over the country to hide her tracks,
change her name ever so often, and be on the alert ... but it was
inevitable that she would slip eventually, and a dead body she dumped into
the river was found with evidence leading to her - and she subsequently
went into a trap set up by the police. Amelia Dyer was hanged in 1896 -
but she was far from the only women finding wealth in baby farming, even
if her estimated number of murders - somewhere between 200 and 400 (only 6
confirmed beyond a doubt) are impressive in a terrible way ... Now
if you're somehow familiar with the case of Amelia Dyer, you won't learn
much new in this movie, as it doesn't add much to the story as such that
you can't find on wikipedia - but what the movie is good at is
firmly rooting it in its era, making a good effort of bringing Victorian
England as such, and especially its dark sides, across to even viewers not
well-saddled in British history. And on top of that, the whole film is
brim full of photos from (very roughly) the era of the proceedings,
ranging from the impressive to the creepy, and features many a clip from
(well and lesser known) vintage movies (including Gaslight,
Ticket of Leave Man, The
Triumph of Sherlock Holmes) set in the era, plus numerous snippets
from newsreels. Granted, not all of these clips hit the mark terribly
well, but they do really put flesh on the bones of the story, and are a
delight to watch nevertheless.
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amazon.co.uk
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
