Jack l'Éventreur

Dr. Orloff (Klaus Kinski) is a London doctor who has the unfortunate compulsion of murdering prostitutes. When he kills a young girl at the start of the film, a begging blind man picks up his scent and recognises the smell of a rare plant found only in the Botanic Gardens. Orloff murders his victims there and has their bodies disposed of by a woman infatuated by him. Inspector Selby (Andreas Mannkopff) is assigned to the case, and with the help of the local prostitutes and the blind man, is determined to track down the man dubbed Jack the Ripper.

One of the most prolific of the cult directors, Jess (or Jesus) Franco directed over 150 features. The majority of these were awful, low-budget horror or skin flicks, and he drifted in and out of porn for a large chunk of his career. When he was on-form, he was actually quite talented. Whereas Jack the Ripper isn't a very good film at all, it certainly displays some of Franco's talents. For a director so fond of breasts and genitals, Ripper is pleasantly genital-light, and even more surprisingly, rather low on gore. It's more interested in Kinski's Orloff and the police investigation that followed him. Historically, of course, it's a load of bull s**t. There's very little (if any) fact on show, but this is forgivable as it is a low-budget horror after all.

The ever-watchable Klaus Kinsi is memorable in the role, even though he is clearly sleep-walking throughout the film. But if you've read his fascinating autobiography you would know he had very little love for his art, so it's a testament to his ability that he manages to be so good with so little effort. But it's the police investigation that is the most entertaining in the film, as Selby is assisted by his ragtag group of witnesses, and a man that has to be the campest police chief in film history.

The gore is quite low like I said, but when it appears it is quite gruesome. There's breast removal, stabbings, corpse-raping, not of which is done convincingly, but it is a shame because the film does occasionally elevate itself above it's shlock roots. It's actually beautifully filmed in some scenes, especially when the moon shines through the trees in the woods scene. It's all a bit too funny-because- it's-bad to be any good, but it's certainly not terrible, and it's actually made me want to check out some of Franco's vast filmography. But I'll probably leave out the porn.

www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

One of the remarkable elements about this improbably interesting, intelligent and engaging fictionalization of the Jack the Ripper story is the fact that the amazing Klaus Kinski is not the only reason the film held my interest. Basically, this is a rather graphic horror film with a lot of perverse sexuality (all of which is too disturbing to be interesting from any prurient perspective). Yet this is not Jesus Franco's standard garbage, but rather an interesting Freudian interpretation of Jack the Ripper, which deviates far enough from the actual historical facts to allow for a few surprises along the way.

The cinematography is generally good. The editing and pace are decidedly unamerican, and will turn off mainstream audiences. the film proceeds at a steady pace, but features dialog which is more oriented toward driving the plot than elaborating the characters. The cast is pretty uneven, but strong support comes from Menkopff, Chaplin and Fux. Kinski's role, though not much of a challenge for him, is interpreted with the great actor's usual intensity. The sets, though not particularly London, and a tad anachronistic at times, are detailed and enjoyable in their own right.

What the film does successfully - and again, it's not all Kinski - is to create a tense and disturbing atmosphere, punctuated with occasionally graphic scenes of sexual and bloody violence. Along the way, the director presents an interpretation of Jack the Ripper which is straight out of Freudian pop psychology. The effect is powerful, and the film is memorable. Perhaps Franco's best work, though I've not seen them all (for good reason!)

I'm a Jess Franco fan but even I will admit that he is a frustratingly uneven director. Franco is a very intelligent guy (a child music prodigy, a student at the Sorbonne, worked with Orson Welles on 'Chimes At Midnight'), but he has been way too prolific for his own good. Almost always working with very small budgets, his movies often appear to be rushed and in some ways, unfinished. On the other hand most of us having been watching lousy prints via video, often censored and generally badly dubbed, so we haven't really been getting to see his work as he originally intended it. 'Jack The Ripper' is a case in point: it has now been digitally restored and looks fabulous, and watching it in German with subtitles, instead of a silly dubbed version, makes you appreciate it a great deal more. Ripper fans will no doubt be extremely puzzled by this movie as it has virtually nothing to do with the facts of the case, but Franco fans are sure to be entertained. The movie was filmed in Zurich instead of London and while aesthetically it doesn't entirely convince, and the whole approach is sometimes quite confusing (just who exactly is the woman in the greenhouse who talks about "pretty dolls" and dumps the bodies??), you very quickly get used to it. Klaus Kinski, in his fourth and last collaboration with Franco, plays the Ripper, and he is absolutely terrific. The bigger a fan of Kinski you are the more you will enjoy this movie. His character is named Orloff, which is not really that much of a surprise, and really this has a lot more in common with Franco's 'The Awful Dr Orloff' (1962) than any other Ripper movie I've ever seen. In Franco's world the Ripper is a well loved doctor who helps the poor of London while simultaneously leading a double life. Tormented by hallucinations of his dead mother, a prostitute, he viciously slaughters streetwalkers, chops them up and dumps their body parts in the Thames. Andreas Mannkopf plays Inspector Selby (why Selby and not Abberline? who knows...), the policeman on the trail of the Ripper, and his estranged girlfriend Cynthia (Josephine Chaplin), a dancer, uses herself as Ripper bait. Franco's wife and frequent star Lina Romay has a memorable cameo as a Ripper victim, and Hans Gaugler plays a blind man whose heightened senses prove to be invaluable help to Selby in discovering the Ripper. 'Jack The Ripper' is quite different from most of Franco's best known movies ('Vampyros Lesbos', 'Succubus', 'Eugenie De Sade'), but the more I see of his astonishing 180+ output, the more I think that he's an extremely underrated film maker who has covered a lot more territory than he is given credit for. Swiss producer Erwin C. Dietrich collaborated with Franco on fifteen(!) movies between 1975 and 1977 and has plans to re-release them all on DVD restored and uncut. I'm sure that if he does this then Franco's reputation will continue to grow.

German/Switzerland/Spain co-production dealing with a serial killer -Jack the Ripper- in London executing his some grisly killings and starred by Klaus Kinski giving overacting , in a really psychotic interpretation , as he knows the schizoid territory thanks to his other usual performances . Murders committed by Jack the Ripper terrorize Whitechapel neighborhood . He's a respected pysician by day , and a murderer at night . As a doctor is as a tenant at a house owns a landlady but by night he becomes Jack the Ripper . Kinski stars a man who checks into a boardinghouse and becomes the object of scrutiny when a series of murders plague the area . As in the Whitechapel slum , a hulking figure prowls in the obscurity , a woman's screams , while the camera stares blindly into a music hall . Jack is out of control , as he transforms into the ominous killer dismembering London prostitutes by night . He searches for his prey in the London streets , as prostitutes at night and eventually at a brothel until the local Inspector's girlfriend (Josephine Chaplin) goes undercover to catch him . Close your eyes and whisper his name... Probing eyes that marked the woman he loved for death! The Story of Jack the Ripper . Psycho is over the edge !. Pyschopatic, pure evil, perverted!.Terror...To freeze Your Heart ! Romance ...To Warm it! Fascinating beauty ...that marked her for Death ¡

This is a moving and horrific story about astonishing oddly murders in Whitechapel whose elusive killer results to be the famous Jack the Ripper. Grim and scary film with chills , thrills , sleaziness , ugly scenes, nudism and lots of blood and gore . Peculiar thriller remains as a special piece on surprises , showcasing the unique visual , zooms and ordinary stylistic tricks that would mark Jess Frank 's work . Resulting to be a tense film about murders with chills , suspense , gory scenes and an amazing final . This intriguing and thrilling story based on a script by prestigious Jean Claude Carriere , though uncredited , and Jess Frank himself . One of the outlandish evocations of this strange Spanish director , this time in the fogbound London of Jack the Ripper . Kinski gives a creepy , remarkable portrayal of perverted sexuality and a psychologically unstable man. . Along with Kinski here appear some familiar faces as Josephine Chaplin, Charles Chaplin's daugher , Herbert Fux , and of course , Lina Romay .This is one of the rate movies in which everything pulls together to create a weirdly compulsive atmosphere with plenty of fog , darkness , lights and shades , well shown on the photography . The production design is acceptable and passable interpretations , but the film is neither for squeamish people , nor for the easily queazy . There are also available several and unrated versions . The motion picture was professionally directed by prolific Jesus Franco, though it has some zooms , flaws , gaps and failures . In many of the more than 200 films he's directed he has also worked as composer, writer, cinematographer and editor. His first was "We Are 18 Years Old" and the second picture was ¨Gritos en la Noche¨ (1962) , the best of all them , also titled "The Awful Dr. Orlof" , it's followed by various sequels such as El Secreto del Dr. Orloff (1964) aka "The Mistresses of Dr. Jekyll" , " Orloff y el hombre invisible (1970) aka "Dr. Orloff's Invisible Monster" and finally "Faceless" (1987) . He also directed to the great Christopher Lee in 4 films : "The Bloody Judge" , ¨Count Dracula¨, ¨The Blood of Fu Manchu¨ and ¨The castle of Fu Manchu¨ . Jesús's influence has been notable all over Europe .

The Jack the Ripper character has been adapted on several occasions for cinema and television from the silent as ¨Pandora's box (1929) ¨ , multiple versions of ¨Lulu¨ a prostitute killed by Jack , ¨Murder by Decree¨ (1979) by Bob Clark with Christopher Plummer, James Mason , Anthony Quayle , John Gielgud , Susan Clark ; ¨Edge of Sanity¨by Gerard Kikoine with Anthony Perkins , Glynis Barber , Claudia Udy ; ¨From hell (2001)¨ by Albert Hughes with Johnny Depp , Heather Graham , Ian Holm and for TV in which appears as character in numerous series as ¨Jack the Ripper (1988)¨ played by Ray McNally and recently in ¨Sanctuary ¨ played by Christopher Heyerdahl , ¨The Lodger¨2009 by David Ondaatje with Simon Baker , Alfred Molina , Hope Davis , and several others .

Let me begin this review with the statement that DVD packaging does make or break a film. Also, DVD packaging that attempts to be creative and exciting (when it is actually not) will only break a film. I mention this because it is what I experienced with Jack the Ripper on DVD. When the film's menu started it seemed like there was some time and effort put into this release.

As the menu opens there is Kinski's spooky eye twitching back and forth with several options for special features and extras. I was impressed; I thought that this film would just start without really any detail going into the DVD. This is what I thought, until I tried to work the audio options. With my German not up to par, I needed some subtitles or anything to help translate this film. What I discovered were flags for different countries to have the characters speak. This was a dubbed film, and the only flag that I knew (since there was no American flag) was Britain's flag. A made the choice and changed the outlook on this film forever. While it was grizzly to watch, there was quite a bit of humor behind it as D-grade British actors attempt to dub over German words. The character voice placement was horrendous. The main police officer sounded more effeminate than respectable and the others had this feel that they were behind the microphone speaking their lines. You never really felt like the voices matched the characters. What began as a developed horror story soon turned into a possible MST3K episode. It really detracted from the overall feel of the film.

This was my first Jesus Franco film and let me say I was taken aback. I wasn't expecting to see the gore and disgusting acts that Jack the Ripper did to these unsuspecting women. Franco holds nothing back from these deeds. The blood is fake, the bodies are doubles, and Franco is behind the camera making this all work. Outside of Clint Howard, Franco could be a master of this genre. I need to see more of his work, but this initial taste left a flavor in my mouth I cannot seem to fathom. I was impressed, and not impressed with this body of work. Kinski did a fantastic job of creating this hellish creature devoid of fear and compassion. The raw power in his eyes alone will send shivers up your spine as you sit in the comfort of your own couch. This was awesome to see, but then on the other side of the spectrum the voice and sound that came from Kinski's mouth was embarrassing. You were scared, yet laughing at the same time. This is the first time that I have ever experienced this feeling while watching a film. Kinski pulled me into this film, but the sound yanked me back out.

Before you expect too much from this film, you need to realize that this was a B-rated horror film. The young women show their breasts, they run into the woods instead of into safety, there are dark alleyways and implausible characters. This is not a film to win awards, but to a newbie into the world of Jesus Franco, it was fascinating. This was not in anyway the caliber of From Hell, because it is a slasher film to the utmost degree. It was somewhat of a tame slasher film, but nonetheless one in that genre. Sexual instability is the culprit in Franco's eyes that built this mass murderer known as Jack the Ripper. While Franco does skew the truth a bit about the actual murders involved with Jack the Ripper (throwing the bodies in the Themes, etc.), it still makes an interesting story.

Overall, it was decent. After I watched it and thought about it for some time, I had a better respect for the film. It wasn't the greatest, yet it wasn't horribly bad. The dubbing caused me the most irritation, while Kinski raised the bar on this film. If you go into this film with high expectations, you will be utterly disappointed, but if you go in with an open mind and an ability to laugh, than it may just be up your dark alley. The DVD packaging is impressive, yet very misleading. The transfer of this film to DVD is impressive for it being made in 1976. Again, not expecting a lot will lead to a better film experience. You should also accompany this film with your favorite six-pack of beer and your most eccentric friend. Sit back, relax (as much as you can with this film) and enjoy the next hour and a half.

Grade: ** out of *****