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A giallo-style murder mystery with a wild West setting, Knife For The Ladies stars Jeff Cooper as private detective Burns, who is hired to investigate the murder of several prostitutes in the once prosperous mining town of Mescal. Wild-eyed Jack Elam plays the town's gruff sheriff Jarrod, who initially isn't best pleased with Burn's appointment, but who eventually teams up with the private eye to find out who has been slicing up the working girls.

Knife For The Ladies has received some fairly scathing reviews here on IMDb, but I fail to understand why: fans of gialli should find plenty to enjoy about this murder mystery, the unseen killer wearing regulatory black gloves to kill the victims, with several deaths, and a suitably macabre revelation (I love the lurid ending!). The western setting is refreshingly different from the usual giallo Euro locale, and allows for a fun sub-plot with Burns and Jarrod having to contend with a lynch mob who wrongfully hanged a man for the murders.

Admittedly, the film isn't as stylish as many a giallo, director Larry G. Spangler failing to wow with the visuals, but on the whole I think this is a pretty entertaining movie with a decent plot and well-drawn characters - far better than the other reviews would have you believe.

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)

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."

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.

A bizarre yet watchable cross between a typical oater and a slasher film, KNIFE FOR THE LADIES (or better known as "Jack The Ripper Goes West" on DVD) is actually a fairly entertaining jumble of genres, aided by the one and only Jack "One-Eye" Elam as the town sheriff, a drunken, unwashed, temperamental SOB who loves his rotgut and loves to fight, all of which is exacerbated when a clean-cut private eye comes in from the big city to help the townsfolk stop an unknown murderer bumping off the women. Although the DVD version is obviously edited of some scenes, causing the story to leave gaps as big as the one in Terry-Thomas's smile,the film moves along at a good gallop until the somewhat predictable conclusion.