A Study in Terror

Now, in my humble opinion there will never be a better "Sherlock" than Basil Rathbone, nor can "Watson" be anyone other than Nigel Bruce. That's not to say that others ought not to try, though - and here John Neville and Donald Houston turn in OK performances as our sleuthing duo. This time, they are charged with solving the mother of all crime mysteries - the identity of "Jack the Ripper". A lot of attention to detail has been incorporated into the superior production, the film evokes well the sense of seedy Victorian Whitechapel with it's lively nightlife and ladies of "ill repute". It actually has just a shade of "Hammer" about it. I did think, though, that the extensive cast diluted the potency of the thing though. There are too many characters and aside from Anthony Quayle, they sort of served to clutter up the story. The writing isn't bad, it tries it's hand at a little humour now and again, but it is frequently wordy - a little too descriptive denying us much opportunity to do any investigation along with them, ourselves. It's a decent watch, an authentic postulation of what might have happened, but Neville just isn't "Holmes" material for me, sorry...

**_What if Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson took on the 1888 Ripper case?_** This was the first of two films that had this plot. The second one, “Murder By Decree,” came out fourteen years later and featured Christopher Plummer and James Mason in the roles of Holmes & Watson whereas this features John Neville and Donald Houston. It’s more colorful and arguably has a superior cast of women, led by raven-haired Georgia Brown as the notable singer at the tavern with Edina Ronay showing up in the last act as Mary Kelly. “Murder by Decree” is a half hour longer, more convoluted, and has a muted palette. Yet they’re both of about the same overall quality. They fill the bill if you're in the mood for a Victorian milieu, black coats, London fog, cobblestone streets, horse-drawn carriages, gas lamps, taverns, Whitechapel women, ghastly murders and old-fashioned detective work. Neither are as sordid & gory as Klaus Kinski’s 1976 rendition or Anthony Perkins’ “Edge of Sanity” (1989) nor as entertaining as “From Hell” (2001). You could call them respectable versions of The Ripper case that are dialogue-driven and eschew exploitation. I’d compare them to Jack Palance’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1968). Keep in mind that the murderer was never identified or arrested and so every cinematic account that reveals the killer's identity is a fabrication or, at best, plausible theory. Aside from the aforementioned “From Hell,” one of the most entertaining films of this ilk is “The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll” from 1960. I realize I’m mixing up the fiction of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella with the real-life case of Jack the Ripper, but the two killers are somewhat linked in that Stevenson's story was published 2½ years before The Ripper slayings debuted. And the stage production of “Dr. Jekyll” in London, 1888, had to be shut down due to the hysteria over the grisly Ripper killlings in which even those who merely played murderers on stage were considered suspects. It runs 1h 35m and was shot in May-Jun 1965 at Shepperton Studios, which is just southwest of London. GRADE: B-