WOW !!!
To most people, the Demon Barber who used a trap door and trick chair to slaughter his clients was the stuff of urban legend. After all, the events connected with his story are almost unbelievable. His exploits prey upon very common human fears: being attacked while vulnerable, and being served up as food or unknowingly consuming someone else. Who hasn't sat in the chair and felt a shiver as the barber or hair dresser takes out that straight razor, sharpens it on the strop and then applies it to the back of the neck? Or taken a bite of a meal and wondered just what the origin of the hair in the hamburger was? So it was for years, as the legend of Sweeney Todd was passed on from generation to generation, people wrote off the story as pure fiction.

But most myths and legends have a basis somewhere in truth, and Sweeney Todd is no different. There really was a mad barber, he really did use a trapdoor and straight razor to rob and kill customers, and most did end up as filling for meat pies. Extensive, painstaking research by British author Peter Haining has shown this without a doubt. Todd's life and exploits are not nearly as romantic as Sondheim would have us believe, but then who would pay to see a movie or musical about a psychopathic mass murderer unless there was more to the story?

What follows is the true story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. There is little romantic or even melodramatic about the life and times of Sweeney Todd. He was an amoral, bitter man who lusted for money and was not averse to killing to get it.

amzing this in fo found here:www.crimelibrary.com

So the story of Sweeney Todd was/is real? Who knew.

Plus I'm not interested in the movie "Sweeney Todd" anyhow. I didn't even see it.

the musical is awsome way better then the movie

On January 25, 1802, in the prison yard at Newgate, Sweeney Todd was strung up on the gallows before a crowd of thousands, where he apparently "died hard." After his execution, his body was given over to a handful of learned "barber-surgeons" where it was dissected. Sweeney Todd ended up, like so many of his victims, as a pile of meat and bones.

I saw Sweeney Todd with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou on Broadway....Excellent show..... It's always been one of my favorite stories.....

yeah its in chicago

1 thing ive always wanted and found hard to get is a straight blade shave, with warm towels. i hear its the best shave ever.

try going to london

I doubt it. I was pissed off when I watched the movie and they started singing. I didn't know it was some half-musical piece of crap. Why do people insist on singing, when talking conveys their thoughts just as well?

People always told me he was fake, but for some reason i was determined to prove his existance. Yay its nice to know people believe i him!!!

i know for a fact that hes not real because he originated in a victorian magazine called the penny dreadfuls [which all the stories in were fake[
then his popularity grew and there were musicals and other crap about him

fake, real. ..who cares. the movie has Johnny Depp in it

The movie still doesn't amount to the musical, however. Do you know how much of the original they cut out of it in order to make the movie? They've cut out the ballad, they've cut out the best part of A Little Priest... *sighs*

I also read the story at crimelibrary.com
It was interesting, and makes you wonder, what's really in your food???

actually no he was real Sweeney Todd was the only child of a pair of silk industry workers who labored in their home in the slum of Stepney. His parents were both alcoholics who placed a desire for gin above everything else in life, and Sweeney quickly learned where he ranked in order of importance to his parents. his parents where abusive and later he was out on his own he later bought a one floor shop on fleet street. The church next door to Todd's shop had been rebuilt several times prior to 1785, and had one time occupied more land on the narrow block. Beneath the church lay forgotten and seldom used tunnels, some of which served as catacombs for long dead parishioners. One of these tunnels fortuitously ran on a 45-degree angle beneath the church, passing under Chancery Lane between Bell Yard and Fleet Street. Somewhere, Todd had learned of these tunnels, whether it was before or after he purchased the lease on 186 Fleet Street will never be known. but todd did lease it and they do have records of it. At 186 Fleet Street, between St. Dunstan's Church and the Hen & Chicken Court, Sweeney Todd hung out his shingle with the catchy rhyme "Easy shaving for a penny — As good as you will find any." In the window of his shop, Haining reports, Todd made reference to the other, more surgical, duties of a barber. He placed jars with teeth he had pulled and blood he had let, along with wigs made of human hair he had braided. The shop, by all accounts, was a small, dark place, with a single barber chair in the middle of the floor, a bench for waiting customers and a rack filled with combs, scissors and, of course, razors. It was a two-story building, with Todd using the upstairs as his apartment. There was a basement, too, for which Sweeney Todd soon found a nefarious purpose.One of the most difficult aspects of murder is disposing of the body. Even in 18th century London, where detection and prosecution was a haphazard affair, it wouldn't do to have evidence of homicide lying around. Using the skills he had learned as a cutler's apprentice, Sweeney Todd built the ingenious device that would help him get rid of the evidence of his crimes. Tying in his cutler's engineering skill, his barber training and the knowledge of the underground tunnels, Sweeney cut a square hole in the center of the floor of his shop. He then attached a pipe to the center of the bottom of the cut out, and fastened the pipe to the ceiling of the basement. Then Sweeney fashioned a series of levers that would allow him to withdraw a latch holding the square in place. When the customer reclined in the chair, his weight would cause the trap door to rotate, tumbling the unwitting victim into the basement below. Another barber chair, fastened to the bottom of the trap door would swing up into place, ready for the next victim. Sweeney Todd's accomplice is even more shrouded in mystery than the murderous barber himself. Her surname was undoubtedly Lovett, but whether her first name was Margery or Sarah remains a mystery. Haining argues in favor of Margery, as most of the articles written about her use that name. She was less than beautiful, according to articles written at the time of her arrest, and her smile came not from her heart, but was as false as the veal filling in her pies.

the movie was based off the musical!! you wouldnt have the movie if not for what the musical made it out to be!!

My dad told me long ago about Sweeny Todd. He is also the one who told me about Vald Dracul,also known as Vlad the Impaler a hero to the Romanian people during a time when the Turks were invading Hungary ,Romania and the Balkans area.

I also recall my dad mentioning a man in Germany who after World War 1,went around murdering people and selling sasauges and other things made of the bodies of his victims. Forgot the guy's name,but he is quite well known and has been mentioned in various crime books.

Long before the Johnny Depp movie, over in England they made a movie in the 1920s or 30s about Sweeny Todd
with the actor Todd Slaughter,which was defintely not a musical.

I loved the movie! Johnny Depp was amazing. He sounds a little like David Bowie. Who knew he could sing?

I know the Broadway musical was probably way better, but it wouldn't have been audience friendly to sing the entirety of each song--it would have run way too long. However, I have downloaded several of the songs from the Broadway musical just to hear the difference.

And yes, there was a real Sweeney Todd. I read the story at the Crime Library, too. Very creepy.

shame how mrs lovett killed herself...lol with posin..so sad.

ohhhh cool!

attend the tale of sweeney todd
his skin was pale and his eye was odd
he shaved the faces of gentlemen
who never thereafter were heard of again.
by sweeney, by sweeney todd...
the demon barber of fleet street


great movie, great musical, was p*ssed when they didn't include the
title song in the movie! Best song in the entire musical!

lmao hell yeah i love that song i also love the origanal way the play was set up

That's very cool to hear. I think I'm going to watch that movie when I find some time. It gives much more extra to a movie if it's based on an event that really transpired.

Found this and thought it was interesting:

In 1800 Joseph Fouche, the Parisian chief of police, documented a series of murders undertaken by a barber and baker on this street. They are often cited as the first serial killers, and also it is argued that the pair were a significant influence in the famous story of the barber Sweeney Todd of Fleet Street, London, and his baker accomplice Mrs. Lovett.

Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue_de_la_Harpe%2C_Paris to learn more.

What I can't figure out is why Wikipedia has Sweeney Todd as Fiction (Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweeney_Todd to read) and Crime library (visit http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers...dd/index_1.html to read) has it as fact???

This site http://www.victorianlondon.org/mysteries/sweeney_todd-01.htm has the original penny dreadful featuring Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It's a good read.

I don't know, but in that case why have any singing at all? Why have any operas, operettas, musical comedies, cantatas, oratorios, pop tunes, war dance chants, hymns, choirs or choruses?

As it is humans have apparently been singing, both solo and in groups, for tens of thousands of years and seem unwilling to give up the pursuit.

Fritz Harmann (or Harrman), who was beheaded in 1925.



It was made around 1935.

the thing is anyone can change anything on wikapedia at least crime library gives you stright off facts. so im going with fact for the simple reson they give you documents and actual dates

I saw that one! I think. . .I saw some really old version of it, and there was no singing in it.

I've never gotten to see the broadway musical. . .so sad because I love that type of thing. . .so I really have nothing to compare the movie with except the really old black and white version I saw on public television a few months ago.

I saw the Johnny Depp version of Sweeney Todd earlier this evening. It's an awesome movie, and besides the complicated romance, I think something like that would definetly have been possible. No motive, no bodies, an alibi, you taste sweet revenge and you earn money with it. It pretty much was the perfect murder back in the day.

Years ago, probably as long agop as the late 1960s, I came across an account of "the Cannibal Chef of New Orleans" in one of the pop-Fortean books of that time.

According to the story the chef had successfully operated a fine dining establishment in the Paris of the early 1850s until it was eventually discovered that the meals he served were made from human flesh.

He then fled to New Orleans, where he repeated the process.

However this seems to be an urban legend, at best, for Googling turns up nothing of the sort.

we have a sausage factory here and back in 1850's a man killed his wife and made her in to sausage supposedly

Yeah i have heard of this story.I forgot the man's name but he did have a sausage factory and did as you say kill his wife.I believe Troy Taylor has something on it at his www.prairieghosts.com site.Don't know if Crime Library has it.
By the way,I would believe the Crime Library site. They have true crime stories,things that really happedn like the Murder Castle of Herman Mudgett, who under an alias,H.H.Holmes, murdered women and others in his murder castle,many of whom were victims during the Chicago's World Fair. and other famous criminals of the past as well as present.

The miscreant here was wealthy Adolf "the Sausage King" Luetgert. However, his bloody butchery did not take place in the 1850s but fully 40 years later. He killed his wife Louisa on May 1, 1897.

thats it!!

This thread reminds me of a rather nasty short story I once read, in which a manufacturing company spreads word throughout the underworld that they are willing to smuggle wanted criminals outside of North America. But only the very bloodiest and most evil malefactors need apply.

The company makes and exports canned dog food!

It is one of the best shaves and man can get. Ofcouse I hate to shave so I have a beard.

you shave

The musical was interesting, singing with small conversational bits to expand the plots understanding. I watched it with my grown son, and i thought it disgusting. I knew he was going downhill after the pirate movies. Reminded me of a guy you don't want to be alone with, because he may hit on you.{i'm a guy}

Can't say the creature the story was based on did'nt deserve the end it had recieved.

well i thought the story was awsome!!!

A bullet to the head, a sword thrust to the heart, or a knife across the throat, for all such creatures, Those who would eat human flesh are forfiet in the eyes of the people. Like those srags that crashed their plane on the mountain top, and were to cowardly to die, and so ate their comrades. They should be shunned at the very least, because they were'nt executed for their crime against humanity/fellow man.

But the "people" themselves don't seem to see it your way, at least not in regard to the South American sports team. Maybe they should, but they don't. I've talked to enough individuals and heard enough sermons preached on precisely this event to be fairly certain of that.

Well, i knew there are some out there who would put up with such. Won't say who they are except they like to disturb people with bells. I just have a higher standard in regards to what is acceptable from human being's, and what is not. I would rather throw myself over the mountain side if i knew some of the other survivers had turned cannibal, at least then i would know the filthy beasts could'nt eat my corpse. I don't view those who eat human flesh to be human anymore, and would have a hard time not striking them if one ever spoke to me.

Anyway that's my own reactions to it, which was reinforced by the movie/musical of the flesh eaters of fleet street. Johnny depp was one of my favorite acters when my kids were little, we liked watching edward scisserhands together. I liked him in 21 jump street to, and thought he well acted the skit when he lost his girlfriend in the store shooting, and he was obsessed with the 2.1 sec's he had had to shoot the shooter first, and had'nt.

And i thought him a generally better acter then, because he got into his part's. I guess i could put up with him in the pirate one's, i know he's not gay or anything, just was a really weird role, even for him, and fleet street just coincided with my feeling's pretty strongly about beasts who would do such thing's. And that i would have executed them. Just me though i guess.

Bye now.

I have to agree with Caana. It's bad enough to kill someone without going cannibal.

Uh...seems like people are taking this VERY seriously.

This was a MOVIE--a work of fiction. It was loosely based on real events that took place in London during a very brutal, lawless time (study up on early London life--it makes New York City look like Disney Land).

Of course, there is a moral to the story. Revenge only leads to more evil--and the wrongdooers in the movie get what they deserve in the end. In no way did I think they were advocating cannibalism! Actually--it explored the horror of such actions.

I'm not a fan of gratuitous violence, and I had to watch those parts of the movie with closed eyes. I did like the music and the performances; especially Johnny Depp.

it wasnt that loose i mean granted no love story in real life but they did turn them into pies and if you think about it .....it was a smart move! dispose of the bodies where they can never be found

i think i may be a cannible.....one day i ate all the jesus in the church the blood 2...

In the play and movie, Sweeney Todd was acting out of vengence--he was falsely accused of a crime and sentenced to 15 years in prison, and his wife was supposedly raped by the Judge who sentenced her husband. She tried to commit suicide but ended up addle-minded instead. His child was raised by the man who put him in prison. This is why he is angry with the world and resorts to murder. In the movie, it never shows Sweeney Todd or Mrs. Lovett eating the pies made of people themselves--they are playing on "joke" on humanity as revenge (and also to dispose of the bodies) by selling the pies to unsuspecting customers. Then there is that entire love story involving Sweeney Todd's daughter and the sailor, which is completely fabricated.

The truth of the matter is that Sweeney Todd simply murdered people out of greed. They used the bodies as meat for pies simply to dispose of the evidence. There is no evidence that Sweeney Todd was acting on anything other than greed and evil. There was no daughter, no wife (she had long left him), no false imprisonment, and no self-righteous, vengeful plan other than to kill people for money. So, I see this as "loose"...but that's a matter of opinion, I guess.

It WAS awful easy for people to get away with murder back in the day. It makes you wonder how many people committed murder and got away with it. It boggles (or, like Will Ferrell would say, "bottles") the mind.

ITS MIND BOTTLEING!! LMAO
anywho but your looking at the things not there if you look at what is robbery of the men. the pies. mrs lovett, the swers, and even the young biy to help them bake the pies

But at least the South Americans didn't kill their friends in order to eat them. Same with the Donner Party in California in the late 1840s, still famous (or rather infamous) in United States history.

well jeffery dahmer...