Jack, o Estripador

I wasn't intending on watching this film as it got a bad review in my TV guide. But when I saw John Le Mesurier (whom I most associate with the TV series "Dad's Army") becoming a prime suspect at the start of this Jack the Ripper themed whodunnit, then I just had to watch the rest.

The film basically uses the Jack the Ripper case as a excuse for a whodunnit. Jack's identity is pretty easy to guess (not enough suspects!), but the motive for the killings takes a bit longer to figure out.

The inclusion of an American policeman in the story does rather pander to an American audience, but it works quite well. I was cynically expecting him to solve the case before the London policeman and have a fight to the death with Jack at the the end of the film. But I was pleasantly surprised with the ending (it was vaguely reminiscent of the endings of a couple of Dario Argento's gialli).

Overall it's not a great film, but if you're into whodunnits then it's worth checking out.

Considering an obviously small budget this film is well written and has an authentic "foggy Victorian look" about it,aided by a complimentary Stanley Black score.It's real merit is the fine character performances especially Euan Solon as a very autocratic hospital surgeon and it is also interesting to see John Le Mesurier far removed from his mild mannered Sargeant Wilson of Dad's Army.The East End/Whitechapel appears to be inhabited by an array of unsavoury characters from music hall impresarios,run of the mill pickpockets and aggressive vigilante thugs.

Still,the plot unwinds at a reasonable pace and the Lee Patterson/Betty McDowell romance doesn't interfere too much with the grizzly goings on in the streets.The final unmasking of Jack is quite unsettling in its brutality,but all the loose ends are nicely tied up with the realisation that due to circumstance(i.e. Jack the Ripper is killed) the true identity of the killer will always be known to the police but not the public.

Well worth a look if you like this genre of film.

There appear to be two versions of this film so beware. The colourised ending with the blood seeping out seems to have been done especially as a gimmick for the USA market.

In the UK version there is no colorised ending (it's all in black and white) and it also looks as if the ending has suffered from censor cuts.

Hopefully, one day we will see a DVD release with both endings included. All screenings in the UK (on TV) have been of the UK version with the black and white ending.

Those interested in this film may also care to check out A Study In Terror in which Sherlock Holmes tackles Jack the Ripper in a hammer forror-ish style.

Every once in a while one finds a film that is mostly mediocre but has one redeeming feature.

The bright spot of Jack the Ripper is it's beautiful lightning. Some B&W films are just gray when to me the beauty of it is in the strong contrast between light and shadow.

All in all this is a very easy film to like. It is beautifully naive in it's portrayal of it's sex murder topic yet at the same time it succeeds in making a powerful point about lynching mob attitude.

The characters are rather predictable and bland with one exception: the young American policeman visiting London. With his accent and idealism displayed under a greasy fifties Buddy Holly hairstyle (remember that this is a period piece set in the 19th century)he brings a nice cowboy twist to the legend of Jack the Ripper.

The titular serial-killer has captivated film-makers and audiences ever since the Silent days: in fact, this was already at least the sixth time – after the 1926, 1932 and 1944 versions of THE LODGER, PANDORA'S BOX from 1929 and 1953's MAN IN THE ATTIC – his vicious exploits were brought to the screen (and countless more would follow)! Other notorious Victorian figures to which the cinema would return time and again are grave-robbers Burke and Hare and their eminent accomplice Dr. Robert Knox: indeed, THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS (which would also see the involvement of Baker and Berman) appeared shortly after this one…and, interestingly enough, both would be released in "Continental Versions" – a brief trend that incorporated entirely gratuitous and often jarringly-inserted nudity intended for more liberal markets, such as France (the copy I acquired of the title under review actually reverts to that language for its three 'alternate' scenes)!

Anyway, the script here (by the late Hammer stalwart Jimmy Sangster) attempts to give a face and a motive to the reputedly methodical perpetrator of these crimes – making him a respectable surgeon deranged by the obsession to seek out and chastise the ex-prostitute apparently responsible for his similarly-gifted but eventually wayward son's suicide; to be fair to it, some of the earlier and later 'Ripper' outings did likewise and their conclusions proved just as simplistic! Nevertheless, Sangster managed to subtly touch upon a number of issues along the way such as female emancipation (and the way it was looked at with suspicion by the male gender), illicit 'after-hours' cabaret activities (and how defenseless young women were practically blackmailed into acquiescing) and also the immediate socio-economic effect of the killings (resulting in deserted streets and a people constantly on edge and distrustful of strangers and authority who find mob violence an efficient outlet for their frustration, with a hunchback and mute morgue attendant – initially a clichéd device – the most convenient scapegoat).

More pragmatically, the finger of guilt seems to be pointing in the direction of John Le Mesurier, a sterling presence in many a classic British comedy but here playing it atypically – albeit effectively – stern (especially given his character's declared aversion to the Police, seedy environments and foreigners, notably Americans: with respect to the latter, let us not forget that the events of 1776 were little more than a hundred years removed from this era and the natural animosity between the two sides had not abated completely).

Incidentally, here we have fictitious support to the manhunt from the United States, with the young cop not only involved in the obligatory romance (as it happens, Le Mesurier's ward and also unwitting sponsor of the Ripper's intended target) but actually solving the case!; however, so as to uphold the established truth of its being an affair still shrouded in mystery, Sangster concocts an improbably bloody demise for the villain.

Despite the obvious low-budget (not helped by the fuzziness of the print on display), the period reconstruction seems fairly authentic – even if such thoroughness, at this stage, did not extend to the murder sequences, which are dealt with too swiftly for them to give an inkling of the adopted clinical approach (that said, the film-makers could have easily worked their way around this hurdle by turning the camera away while keeping the brutal action going in the background!).