Jack the Ripper



It’s 1888, and a crazed killer is stalking and killing women in the Whitechapel district in London, with nary a clue to the killer’s motive or identity. So Scotland Yard’s Inspector O’Neill is more than happy when his old friend New York Detective Sam Lowry pays him a visit and offers him extra support in tracking down the killer. But with the people of Whitechapel already on edge, there may not be much they can do other than let the killer’s diabolical plan play out until he trips up and makes a mistake.



Well, April has rolled back around once more, which means that it’s once again Foreign Films Month here at Random Movie Musings. I put a couple of potentially weird ones on my to-do list for this month, but since I just watched a documentary on the subject, I figured I’d knock this British version of Jack the Ripper off the list first, especially since it’s been languishing on my watch-list for a couple of years now. Considering the obvious name, time period and clear subject matter, I expected it to be a rather light, though fictionalized re-telling, of the notorious historical crimes of one of the world’s most notorious killers. And, well, it kind of is, in that they got the time period and location right, but really it’s…not about that at all.


For instance, there’s also attempted sexual assault.

Instead of being some kind of dramatization of the historical events, the movie is instead a (very loose) adaptation of the real-life story, incorporated with a theory presented in the 1929 book, The Mystery of Jack the Ripper, by Australian journalist Leonard Matters. In it  Matters claims that the famous killer was an angry surgeon who was avenging the (premature) death of his son, after he (presumably) contracted a venereal disease from a (purported) prostitute and died. The book itself is probably one of the more famous Ripper texts, in that it was one of the first such books on the subject, and because it contains photographs of all the original locations of the murders before things got torn down. But beyond using Matters’ theory and the name Jack the Ripper, that’s about as far as this movie gets to being historically accurate. Because this isn’t actually in any way a historical tale about Jack the Ripper. Instead, it’s just your standard “who-dun-it”, and both the theory in the book and the name seem to have only been used as an excuse to draw people in. So basically the entire film is it’s own thing, where there’s a killer running around called Jack the Ripper, and he does indeed kill some women in the part of town known as Whitechapel. But that’s where the similarities end. The names have all been changed, the methods have all been changed, the professions of the ladies have all been changed (they’re not all prostitutes here. One is a bartender and another is a dancer) and because this was made in Britain in the 1950s, all the violence is much more subdued than what occurred during the actual crimes…. Or at least it is in the original version.



Yes, I said ‘original version’ because – Surprise! Surprise! – there’s actually an “international” version of the film which is a bit more …risque. And by that I mean that they went back later and added more blood and boobs for the worldwide market to indulge in. But I watched the original version… the director’s cut, if you will. Otherwise known as the Stuffy British Original (SBO), which contains neither boobs, or blood, beyond some dark gray smudges which are meant to imply blood, because the SBO is 100% black and white. But if you watch the non-SBO version of the film you actually get a smathering of color during the finale. That color in question being blood red, which you see when the killer borks his exit strategy and bites the big one. And I guess there are also some cuts of the film that remove only the added nudity and some of the more violent close-up shots, and include only that ONE shot of the colored blood at the end? So, just like some other films (*cough* Pigs *cough*) you’ll have to double check with this one to see what version it is you’re about to watch. But you’ll probably be able to figure out which one it is pretty easily, based on how violent it is and how many ladies you see without their tops on (and because the full international version is approximately 4 minutes longer at 84 minutes, as opposed to the original 80).


Here’s a screenshot of the “shocking” amount of blood you’re missing out on if you only watch the original version. I just saved some of you a lot of time for what amounts to about 5 seconds.

But other than a couple topless French women and a few seconds of blood at the end (really, it’s NOT worth it), the versions of the film are largely the same. And by that I mean that 98% of the film is a very light detective tale that shockingly doesn’t seem to be all that focused on the Jack the Ripper case, but rather more on everything else going on in Whitechapel because of the Jack the Ripper case. So you’ve got several scenes involving angry mobs, the politics involved due to not yet having caught the killer, and there’s even an entire sup-plot devoted to the American detective courting the hospital secretary. Which means, yes, in a movie supposedly focused on one of the world’s most notorious serial killers, they somehow managed to cram in a romance plot. Hell, there’s even an extended scene where he takes her out on a date! I mean, yeah, one of the dancers they go see does end up off-ed in the alley out back, but I fail to see why I was also forced to continue to watch them watch two more acts, including an awkward comedian and a clown. What was the point in that? I hate clowns! What, were you trying to make me suffer along with the victim? You can kindly eff off with that nonsense. Get back to the case already!


There, that’s better.

Thankfully, though the movie does occasionally get distracted with itself and its various sub-plots, the bulk of the story is fine, as is the acting that goes along with it. While I don’t really recognize anybody, most if not all of the main characters seem to have had a good assortment of roles under their belts, both before and after this film, so there aren’t any amateurish performances and everyone feels perfectly suitable for their roles. Though I think the film may have done a disservice to the main cast, because some of the movie’s side characters got some of the best lines and stood out so well that I think they managed to overshadow them in a couple of places.



But the one glowing point in the film’s favor, is that it does have some very nice cinematography and framing… At least most of the time. Even on some of the nicer prints there appear to be a handful of scenes that still feel a bit too dark and murky for my tastes. But for the most part the filmmakers seem to have spent considerable time carefully considering the lighting and contrast they were working with, so many of the scenes (especially the more important ones) end up looking quite striking.



Mostly though, Jack the Ripper really feels like any standard detective story. It does occasionally feel a bit Noir-ish at times, especially with the use of the random non-standard camera angles. But there really isn’t anything here that makes the movie stand out from any other run-of-the-mill detective stories from the era. Not even the subject matter, which isn’t even really about the subject the title implies. Maybe if it had been, and the story hadn’t strayed so far from both the historical crime and the book the film was supposedly based on (or even if one of the detectives had been more interesting), it might feel more engaging. But it’s not. It just feels like a standard crime drama that really could have been about anyone if they’d just changed the name of the killer and title. Luckily though, it’s still a pretty decent film for what it is, so if you enjoy these types of who-dun-it tales and need some time to kill, then this one is pretty easy to watch. But if you’re looking for something more historically accurate, then I suspect that you’re going to walk away from this film very disappointed.

Jack the Ripper is available on a variety of streaming services (including Youtube).

Jack the Ripper is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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