dickloeb

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Reporter: “Hello King, where’s your slave?”

Loeb: “Good morning. But what’s this ‘King’ stuff?” He puts on an innocent smile and pretends to be ignorant.

Reporter: “According to the reports of Dr. Bowman and Dr. Hulbert, you are the ‘King and master criminal’ and Babe is only your ‘slave.”

Loeb: “Well, I don’t know anything about it.” He smiled, “I haven’t seen the morning papers yet.”

Leopold came from the barber shop and joined the group: “We were just reading that ‘King’ and ‘slave’ stuff in the morning papers. Where did they get that-out of a joke book?”

Loeb: “Oh you dumbbell! I just finished telling him we hadn’t read it.”

Leopold: “How did you expect me to know that?”

Loeb: “What a dumbbell.” He held his hands up in mock despair

-Chicago Daily Journal, July 28, 1924

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What if we killed a guy and hid him in a trunk from which we served a dinner party for his family and friends (and we were both boys)

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"He seldom spoke of his crime, but I did learn something of it when he talked of Dickie, and in unguarded moments when he'd drop a crumb or two. He had thought himself a homely boy, unwanted and despised. When the handsome, sought-after Loeb sought him out, he became his willing slave.

Both boys believed they were beyond good and evil in a corruption of the Nietzschean doctrine of the superman. Dickie became the superman while Babe became the superwife (a term I heard Nate use often.)

In this victim-victor relationship Loeb and Leopold clove together, needing each other, using each other, identifying with each other, and doing together what they could not have done alone.

True to the victim-victor syndrome they exchanged their oblique roles. How many times was I given to feel, by Babe, that he was, as the superwife or queen, the true power behind the throne?"

-Memorial to Babe by Paul Warren, Village Voice, October 28, 1971

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-Quote by William Healy, The State of Illinois vs. Leopold and Loeb

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Nathan Leopold quoting poetry to explain his feelings for Richard Loeb.

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Made purely because this Letterboxd review for Compulsion made me giggle:

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"But you don't have to worry. He's at peace now."

Like Minds (2006) dir. Gregory J. Read

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Could you give your top 3 favorite and top 3 least favorite adaptations of the Leopold-Loeb story?

Based off of nothing but my entertainment from them:

Favorite

1. The Death of Dickie Draper by Jerome Weidman

2. Nothing but the Night by James Yaffe

3. Rope (1948)

Least Favorite (Soooooo many could fit in this category…so many)

1. Ashes on the Wind by Brandy Purdy

2. Semblance of Balance

3. Thrill Me

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What do you think Artie's life was like in prison?

That is a horrifying thought. I think it depends on the Artie. There’s book Artie, movie Artie, and play Artie. All are very different to me.

All we know about Artie’s time in prison (that I can remember, it’s been a minute since I’ve read that book) is that he was killed by a “jealous” inmate. Which is confusing and calls for more questions.

Logically I’d say since Compulsion is Meyer Levin’s opinion and view on the Leopold and Loeb case in a fictional setting, I’d have to say that Artie’s life in prison must be similar to Loeb’s. So that means he must have set the prison on fire, killed a few people, and started up his finally successful mafia business.

That was a joke. I’m guessing his life in prison would be similar to Loeb’s (the school, friendship with Judd/Nathan, jobs, etc) with more sinister intent behind it since Artie is literally insane in the worst way.

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Do u think loeb loved leopold, what do u think his sexuality was? I personally think he was queer, he was never sexually attracted to a woman, never fell in love with one. He refused to talk about his sexuality and lied a lot when talking about it. He was the type to date people and quickly drop them, but he didn’t with leopold, even after prison they remind close. I honestly don’t know why people view him as straight, they say he dated women, but many closeted men date many women, but they are gay. I remember in his psychiatric evaluation, it said something like he always desired to be with people and he like cared a lot about what people thought of him, so probably when they started say that he slept with a man and that he wouldn’t be allowed to the frat house because of these rumours, he probably got scared, and just loeb was never that emotionally confident as leopold.

The thing with Loeb, especially with his sexuality, is that we don’t know much. What we do know is that he wasn’t very forthcoming with information about sex to the psychiatrists, and that in 1924 he said that he didn’t really care for sex all that much and could go without it. He also said the actual relationship is where he gets enjoyment. Loeb died young and his personal life in prison is practically a mystery so we don’t have much to go on when it comes to true facts. We can only speculate for now.

I think he could have been queer. He could have been straight. He could also have just had a low sex drive or his sex drive just hadn’t kicked in yet. To be fair, he didn’t really seem to have much of a reason to enjoy sex when very early on he got an STD, and with Hamlin walking in on him and Leopold in bed and the rumors that spread from that. Things like that could have deterred him from caring for sex. It also seemed like he was dealing with some depressive episodes and burnout from school, which are things that can be attributed to a low sex drive. He could have just been experimenting with Leopold. In fact, it was noted that once the curiosity off sex with Leopold wore off Loeb become basically annoyed with the act. I think there’s a high probability that he was queer and just not attracted to Leopold lol.

He did seem to enjoy being with the girls he dated/was currently seeing at the time. Which could be him mistaking friendship for attraction, but could also be that he genuinely liked them. We just don’t know and likely never will. But hell with freeze over before I say that Loeb was straight.

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Wow

(from Arrested Adolscence by Erik Rebain)

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100 years ago today Leopold and Loeb confessed to the murder of Bobby Franks. The Chicago Tribune’s newspaper that came out June 1, 1924 (revealing the confessions, photos, and other interesting information) supplied some quotes and supposed reactions from family and friends. This was, in my opinion, the beginning of the extraordinary coverage and media frenzy for what would later become known as the “Crime/trial of the century.”

“Utter disbelief in the confessions has been expressed by the families of both boys. Nathan Leopold, aged millionaire, and invalid for several years stood on the front porch of his home yesterday and cried and said his boy could not have done the things he is declared to have confessed. The father said again and again, “Impossible, ridiculous, Nathan - my boy - my boy- I can’t believe it - I won’t believe it.” And he tried to smile, through his tears, at reporters who gathered around him.” Nathan Leopold Sr.

“He (Loeb) couldn’t have done it. We know he’s innocent.” …. A confession which the family still refuse to believe. Mr Loeb, confined to his bed, his wife weeping alone, and two brothers hurrying from their homes. “He is innocent,” they say, “and confessed merely to get sleep. It can be refudiated when he comes to trial.” The Loeb family.

““It’s a damned lie.” Said Richard Rubel hysterically. “I’m Dick Loeb’s best friend and he couldn’t have done it. For a ransom-” He looked about at the magnificent home of his millionaire friend, at the garage stocked with limousine, sedan, coupe, traveling car; at the tennis court where they so often played. “Why those boys could have had all the money in the world! Why should they do that?” Richard Rubel.

“Young Leopold has said he is an atheist,” commented Jacob Franks. Now, perhaps, he will realize that there is a God - that God alone could have caused him to drop those glasses and lead the way to my boy’s murderer.” ….. “These youths are victims of themselves,” he said quietly. “A mind cannot be sane which holds thoughts of murder, and if they are unbalanced the place for them is an asylum. But the law must take its own course.” Jacob Franks.

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Brothers in the newspapers

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Dick Loeb was an honor graduate of the University of Michigan. He mastered his books, but the greatest book of all time, that of Life, he could not understand; for he had not learned that Life will be avenged on its destroyer. Sane philosophy he rather despised, deeming it “metaphysical bunk,” and fell enmeshed of the diseased gibberings of criminal minds; he had not learned that first lesson of the wisdom of the race that murder cannot be hid. History he studied, and gloried in the exploits of great conquerors of the past. But his hand was turned, not against enemies or even rivals, but against a friendly little boy. French was his favorite study at Harvard school. His particular liking was for French detective stories - but the lesson that crime always betrays itself he had not learned. Psychology was a favorite field of his research. He knew - from books - the inner workings of the mind.

Nathan Leopold Jr., 19 year old intellectual, college graduate and confessed slayer of 13 year old Robert Franks, won fame in Michigan as an ornithologist, who could cause wild birds to eat out of his hand. Now he is called “ the man without a conscience,” who thinks nothing of having slain in cold blood a young boy, just to get a thrill. Leopold is the stoic of the two youthful killers, and apparently has no fear that he will pay for his crime on the gallows.

Detroit Times

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the secret history + allusions to leopold and loeb