A Knife for the Ladies

1973's "A Knife for the Ladies" starts out as a whodunit set in the Old West, but it's clearly no Jack the Ripper and its few murder scenes are devoid of both blood and suspense. Old Tuscon is the Arizona location used by screenwriter Seton I. Miller, whose career dates back to 1927, his best horror item the stunning Lionel Atwill vehicle "Murders in the Zoo," which was actually far more gruesome for 1933 than anything seen in this tame release. Jeff Cooper's Edward Burns is a private investigator out to solve a series of stabbings in which the victims are all young women of ill repute, at odds with town sheriff Jarrod Colcord (top billed Jack Elam) for accusing the wrong man of the most recent crime. The killer could be saloon owner Virgil Hooker (Gene Evans), perhaps eager to divert suspicion by lynching an innocent man, or nervous barber/undertaker Orville Ainslie (Richard Schaal), whose behavior puts Burns on the trail of town founder Elizabeth Mescal (Ruth Roman), her late son a former deputy with a passion for the ladies. The promised horror film just isn't here, while the veteran presence of Jack Elam offers an aging character holding on to past glories, finding kinship with Burns and redemption in their success, once they learn how arsenic is used in medication. As offbeat as a Western can be, but spotty distribution through short lived Bryanston Pictures kept it from being widely seen (better known releases were "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and "The Devil's Rain"). Director Larry G. Spangler was no stranger to casting NFL players, using Oakland Raiders wideout Fred Biletnikoff here, two years after working with Joe Namath on another Western, "The Last Rebel." Making her final screen appearance is Diana Ewing, one of STAR TREK's most intoxicating beauties in the 1969 episode "The Cloud Minders."

Does this movie wanna be a western, giallo, comedy, mystery, or what? This movie fails in every genre. If it's trying to be a western, it fails entirely because the detective's 70s hairstyle, clothes, and mannerisms will completely jar viewers out of the western setting. If it's trying to be a giallo, it failed because most of the movie is nonsensical filler that distracts from the killings. If it was trying to be comedy, I didn't find anything intentionally funny, even by 70s standards. If it's trying to be a mystery, it fails because the movie gets so boring by the halfway mark that I fell asleep. I woke up exactly when the killer was revealed, right at the end. When the killer was revealed, I thought, "This movie is still on?" because by that point I had lost so much interest in the movie I decided to go to bed rather than waste time rewatching scenes I fell asleep during. In fact, I turned it off before the credits rolled.

Boring, boring, boring, even by 70s standards. Boring characters where I didn't care who lived and who died. A western setting that is painfully obvious it's a movie set. And decided lack of tension or suspense in a movie that touts itself as a murder mystery. All in all, if you wanna fall asleep, put this crap on. If you wanna watch something even the tiniest bit memorable, don't bother with this.

A Knife for the Ladies (or Jack the Ripper Goes West) is a weird mix of genres. It's a Western with a slasher storyline running through it. A mad killer is slashing the necks of prostitutes in the town of Mescal. The sheriff, Jarrod (Jack Elam) seems incapable of finding the killer, so the town's leaders bring in a private detective named Burns (Jeff Cooper). Can Burns find the killer before Mescal's brothel is left vacant?

Overall, A Knife for the Ladies is one lousy movie. Neither the horror nor the Western elements work. Until the final scene, it's a total failure. Much of the problem comes from the fact that nothing looks real. The town is obviously a set - it doesn't feel "real". The people are obviously actors playing parts. They're not "real" either. Jack Elam's old grizzled hard-drinking sheriff is so over-the-top that he's ridiculous. And Jeff Cooper's Burns is too 1970s to be authentic. A Knife for the Ladies' lone highlight comes in its finale. It's actually a nice twist that I honestly didn't see coming. I could have never guessed the killer's identity. But as nice as the ending may have been, I still can't bring myself to rate A Knife for the Ladies any higher than a 3/10 - and that's being generous.

Finally, one especially annoying aspect A Knife for the Ladies is the way it tries to play the old-school sheriff against the more modern detective. But it's all talk. There's no evidence presented of any real clash between the old vs. new law enforcement techniques. It's as if someone involved with the movie's production thought this conflict would make a good storyline so they threw it into the movie without really adding it (if that makes any sense). Predictably, the old and new get into a completely unnecessary fistfight before they can work together. It's so forced it's painful.

City private investigator Jeff Cooper travels to frontier backwater in order to investigate the slasher murders of town matriarch Ruth Roman's son and a gaggle of local prostitutes. Things are complicated by the vigilante murder of a Mexican cowboy and brutish, old-school sheriff Jack Elam.

Mildly entertaining drive-in trash, this benefits from the old low-rent sets and ancient costumes that were pretty much a sign of the times in the early seventies. You can practically smell the mothballs, though they (the set-pieces not the mothballs) make this low, low-budget western/horror flick almost look like a million bucks. The weird, very exploitative climax is fun too, as are the presences of Elam and Roman.

For a better Jack-the-ripper-goes-west story, watch the Episode of Dead Man's Gun aptly titled "The Ripper".

Now here's something you don't encounter every day... "A Knife for the Ladies" is a genre hybrid between western and horror. No wait, let me specify that even more, it's a western mixed with strong and typical giallo trademarks! Of course, you can't really be sure if this was intentional. Was director Larry G. Sprangler even aware that overseas, in contemporary Italy, the giallo existed or was it just a lucky but coincidental choice to provide this film's killer with black leather gloves and make him/her hunt down lurid women with a sharp knife? It also doesn't matter that much, as the combo works quite effectively! "A Knife for the Ladies" is a heavily flawed film, mostly suffering from a pacing that is far too slow and a very poor use of western decors and set-pieces, but the plot is still an engaging whodunit and the murders are reasonably grisly. The town of Mescal is plagued by vicious murders and, so far, the bodies of three women have been discovered with their throats slit. The town council decides to hire private detective Burns to find the culprit, since Sheriff Jarrod is too incompetent to solve anything except for wrongly parked horses. Burns runs into a few suspects, including a morbid undertaker and the nasty saloon-owner who secretly aspires to become sheriff, but meanwhile the murders continue. "A Knife for the Ladies" is a recommendable effort, especially if you're into obscure and experimental 70s horror, but you'll have to accept the snail-pace, the lack of directorial style and the poorly created western setting. On the bright side, crazy-eyed Jack Elam is always a pleasure to watch and the denouement is vile and twisted in good old-fashioned Giallo tradition (albeit somewhat predictable if you look at the poster images)