A Knife for the Ladies

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)

In A KNIFE FOR THE LADIES, a small, old-western town is plagued by a serial-killing maniac. When the hard-drinking sheriff (Jack Elam) fails to catch the perpetrator, a private detective (Jeff Cooper) is brought in to solve the case. Unfortunately, the town roustabouts, led by the saloon owner (Gene Evans), don't want to wait that long.

This movie is a murder mystery with heavy doses of gothic-like horror. In fact, if it had been set in Victorian England, it could have easily been a HAMMER film with the likes of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in the lead roles. As it stands, it's a respectable mixed genre effort. Both Cooper and Elam are believable in their roles.

Don't miss the twist finale, and be sure to stick around for the big rock song at the end. It's a hoot!...

A Knife for the Ladies (1974)

1/2 (out of 4)

Mescal is a small Southwest town where not too much happens, which keeps the local Sheriff (Jack Elam) happy. All of this changes when the local prostitutes turn up dead and the locals begin to fear that Jack the Ripper (or a copycat) might be committing the crimes.

This film is out there in two versions with the uncut one being the hardest to find, although it was released to Blu-ray by Code Red. This version here clocks in at 86-minutes and is the uncut theatrical version that went under the title of A KNIFE FOR THE LADIES. The film was much more widely available via countless public domain companies under the catchy title of JACK THE RIPPER GOES WEST but that version clocks in at just 51-minutes. After watching the uncut version I must admit that I would have given anything to see it cut down.

Man, where do you start with a film like this? This movie wants to be a Western, a horror picture, a murder-mystery and I think it also tries to have some black comedy as well. It tries to be a lot of things but sadly it doesn't do anything well and it in facts does nothing but waste the talents of Elam, Ruth Roman and Jeff Cooper. All three people are wasted in their rather silly roles, which is too bad because the idea behind the film is an interesting one and it should have made for a better picture.

The film really kills itself because it just doesn't do anything right. The horror elements are rather watered down and you never once care who the killer is. It also doesn't help that as a Western it feels a lot cheaper than those old B films from the 1930s. There's no sleaze or anything else to hold your attention and in fact the only thing that does hold your attention is just waiting to see how much worse it gets.

I'm not sure what all is missing in the cut version but I'd have to say it would be better to watch since the 86-minute cut just features non-stop dialogue scenes and is a real chore to sit through.