Though this period initially offers only mediocre Ripper productions, it soon becomes one of the most fruitful periods in Ripper television and cinema. Here the Ripper first goes into space, first battles Sherlock Holmes, first transcends time. Here we begin Jack the Ripper’s onscreen romance with imaginative television and cinema.

1950s-1960s Ripper films:
the man in the attic (1954) | jack the ripper (1958) | jack the ripper (1959) | yours truly, jack the ripper (1961) | lulu (1962) | the new exhibit (1963) | a study in terror (1965) | a wolf in the fold (1967) | knife in the darkness (1968)

the man in the attic (1954)

brief synopsis
With a couple of minor changes, this plot is virtually identical to the plot of the 1944 Lodger.

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The Man in the Attic is often legimately attacked for being a second-rate version of the brilliant 1944 Lodger. However, Jack Palance is also frequently criticized for turning in too low-keyed a performance. His low-key scenes, though, serve as wonderful contrast for those in which Palance shows the depths of his character’s intensity. No, the problem is not in the star. The problem is in the supporting players. In the 1944 film, top-notch actors such as George Sanders, Sarah Allgood, and Sir Cedric Hardwicke gave outstanding supporting performances. Byron Palmer’s detective, though, pales next to George Sanders’; and Frances Bavier is a non-entity compared with the great Sarah Allgood. The problem with The Man in the Attic is not that it’s not a perfectly acceptable piece of television-fodder. The problem is that it’s a gratuitous remake of one of the 1940s’ greatest suspense films.

types

Investigation Rippers: This film has essentially the same police work as found in the 1944 film The Lodger.
The Lodger Motif: Mad Avenger. Ripper kills actresses to avenge his father’s alcoholism and death which resulted from his actress mother’s adulterous deception of her husband.
Period Atmosphere: This film does a good job with West End London, and a decent job with East End streets.

availability
Once upon a time, this film was extremely rare. Now there are multiple DVD versions to choose from. Be careful though. There’s also a 1995/1996 film of this same name starring Anne Archer. Just be sure to choose the version with Jack Palance and Constance Smith, and you’ll be fine. Man in the Attic is available also for video download and is rentable from Netflix.

jack the ripper (1958)

brief synopsis
This half-hour episode of Boris Karloff’s short-lived series The Veil focuses on a psychic’s attempt to convince the police that he has “seen” the killer in his dreams. In fact, he knows the details of the Ripper kilings so well that the police suspect him of the murders - until the Ripper kills twice in one night as Durst warms a jail cell.

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This Ripper episode has a peculiar history. It was one of several episodes filmed for Boris Karloff’s abortive television series The Veil. When that series crashed, it was put together with three other already-filmed episodes and released as an anthology film called Jack the Ripper. Nowadays, it’s being treated again as a single episode filmed for the series. This episode stars Niall MacGuinness, who–as usual–provides the necessary conviction to pull off the part.

types
Investigation Rippers: Psychic George Durst takes it upon himself to investigate the Ripper crimes that he sees in his dreams.
Jack the Ripper Fantastique: The character of George Durst is clearly based on the real-life character of Robert Lees, the reputed “psychic” who some claimed ran the Ripper to ground.

availability
This half-hour television episode is available in VHS and DVD. On DVD, it is available as an individual title and as part of the entire series of The Veil. It is rentable from Netflix as part of The Veil series. I believe the episode is on Volume 3.

jack the ripper (1959)

brief synopsis
NYPD detective Sam Lowry arrives in London to help track down the Ripper, as panic spreads through the streets of Whitechapel. Woman after woman falls to a killer who asks first if she is “Mary Clarke.” When the Ripper finally finds Mary, though, Lowry is right on his heels…

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Overall, this is a pretty good movie. It has the reputation of being rather lurid, largely because of the final scene - in which the previously black-and-white picture suddenly turns red with the Ripper’s own blood. That ending, of course, is one of the most famous moments in Ripper cinema, and is about the only thing that screenwriter Jimmy Sangster says he remembers about the film.

types
Investigation Rippers: Investigation is the crux of this movie, as a New York policeman comes to London to help police decipher the Ripper killings.
The Lodger Motif: Mad Avenger. Ripper’s son committed suicide on learning that his beloved Mary was a former prostitute. The Ripper now seeks to avenge his son’s death by killing every prostitute who crosses his path during his attempt to find this “Mary Clarke.”
Period Atmosphere: This is the first Ripper film to take East End conditions seriously. It does an admirable job of recreating the panic and degrading conditions in the East End during Fall 1888. Excellent job with the Dance Hall environment.
Political Rippers: Though there is no political conspiracy involved in this film, there are political implications to the action taking place here. Jack the Ripper (1959) shows the near-riotous conditions in the East End during the Ripper killings - conditions which in 1888 threatened to bring down the Home Secretary and impair the British government.

availability
Jack the Ripper (1959) is available for DVD purchase from Movies Unlimited. Warning: If this is the film you want to see, then be sure to check that the date of the video you’re ordering is 1959 and not is not the 1958 episode of The Veil!

yours truly, jack the ripper (1961)
(tv: thriller. nbc. airdate: april 11, 1961)

brief synopsis
Through the ritualistic blood sacrifice of his victims, Jack the Ripper has survived and remained young some 70 years beyond the last Whitechapel slaying. Now, the women of Chicago serve his need for sacrifice. But as Sir Guy Hollis (a Ripper expert from Britain) ever-more-accurately tracks his prey, the killer is finally in danger of facing capture… and justice.

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Just take a look at those credits, and then realize that “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” actually lives up to the talent that made it happen. Robert Bloch wrote the story - one of the first mass market pieces of American Ripper fiction - back in the 1940s. Barré Lyndon (The Lodger and The Man in the Attic) provided an excellent adaptation, and Jerry Goldsmith an outstanding score. Ray Milland successfully tried his hand behind the camera. Milland would later act in another Jack the Ripper production (Terror in the Wax Museum), just as Bloch would later write the teleplay for Star Trek’s famous Ripper episode (A Wolf in the Fold).

types
Investigation Rippers: Police procedural… with a supernatural killer.
Jack the Ripper Fantastique: Sir Guy Hollis convinces tough Chicago police that the real Jack the Ripper is in their midst, nearly 100 years later. Somehow, the killer has attained immortality. But he does have to keep killing to keep it.

availability
I obtained my copy a number of years ago from private collectors. More recently, collectors have opened the vaults and made this episode more widely available - though it is still not commercially available. “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” is available on Disc 7 of a complete Thriller DVD collection. I cannot vouch for the quality. If you want to take a walk on the wild side, you can also find this episode available for free download as a Torrent. I’ll leave you to google that one on your own. I cannot vouch that it is free of malware.

lulu (1962)
(a.k.a. no orchids for lulu)

brief synopsis
When the socially respectable Dr. Schön takes in the poor flower girl Lulu, he not only makes her into a well-educated lady, but also sees to her sexual education. Not surprisingly, he finds that even after marrying her off, twice, into the “lap of luxury,” she wants to be his wife, not his cast-off. Schön’s grotesque error in the treatment of his protegé leads to the destruction of a great many people, including himself… and ultimately Lulu. Ironically, it is through blindly casting all the blame on her that he meets his own death.

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Director Rolf Thiele has impressive credentials for a director of a Ripper film. Before trying his hand at Lulu, he had written and directed one of the most popular German films of the 1950s: Das Mädchen Rosemarie (1959), also starring Nadja Tiller. His film prior to that, Die Halbzarte (1958), had appeared in the Cannes Film Festival, alongside the work of François Truffaut and Luis Buñuel. In addition, legendary German actor Heinz Rühmann appeared in three Thiele films.

Despite these hints at Thiele’s possible greatness, we had hoped for a merely competent Ripper film. Instead, Thiele demonstrated that he belonged in the company of the great European filmmakers of his era. He shot Lulu in sharp and gorgeous black and white, and had cinematographer Michel Kelber compose nearly every frame so beautifully that one could state (without much hyperbole) that there are very nearly 5 reels of outstanding still photographs here, just waiting to be mined. Thiele, though, did not sacrifice the story for technique, or the acting for cinematography. Every element of this film - plot, acting, and technique - is perfectly balanced. The result? Rolf Thiele’s “lost classic,” Lulu, far transcends nearly all the rest of Ripper cinema. This film’s Jack the Ripper (Charles Régnier), incidentally, played a shopkeeper in the 1965 Ripper movie A Study in Terror.

types
Lulu Motif: This masterful version of the Lulu story remains extraordinarily faithful to Wedekind’s plays.

availability
The UCLA Film and Television Archive has a research print of this film, under the English title No Orchids for Lulu. And The Flanders International Film Festival showed the film on June 8, 1998, in a program screening three Lulu films. Nevertheless, Lulu appears not to be available on video, either in subtitled English or in German.

the new exhibit (1963)
(tv: the twilight zone. cbs. airdate: april 4, 1963)

brief synopsis
Martin Senescu’s obsession with the wax statues on Murderer’s Row intensifies after he brings the dummies home. Soon, people who cross him start winding up dead–murdered in the same styles as Senescu’s inanimate killers.

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The New Exhibit is director John Brahms’ second foray into putting the Ripper onscreen. The first time—in The Lodger (1944)—he gave us the private life of Jack the Ripper, behind the scenes when he was not engaged in slaughter. In this episode, he gets a wonderful performance out of Martin Balsam, as Martin Senescu… just as he earlier got a terrific performance out of Laird Cregar, as Slade/The Ripper.

types
Jack the Ripper Fantastique: We’re never quite sure, but since this is the Twilight Zone, it’s entirely possible that Jack’s wax statue has come back to life to commit a Ripper-like murder.
Rippers in the Wax Museum: A wax statue of Jack the Ripper is one of the inhabitants of murderer’s row.

availability
This hour-long episode, which frequently plays on cable and almost always makes an appearance in Twilight Zone marathons, is finally available on commercial DVD, as Volume 36 (Season 4) of the Twilight Zone collection. It is rentable from Netflix.

a study in terror (1965)

brief synopsis
When Holmes gets drawn in to investigating the Jack the Ripper killings, his inquiry takes him towards the nobility… just as the outcry over the killings threatens to bring down the British government.

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A Study in Terror is the first Ripper film I know of to actually name the victims and not gloss over the Ripper’s mutilations. In fact, it opens with a discussion of the Polly Nicholls murder. It’s also the first film pitting Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper… and Holmes here is played by the same actor who gave us the “Well-Manicured Man” in The X-Files. This is a fine, if somewhat underrated, entry in Ripper cinema.

types
Investigation Rippers: The investigation falls to Sherlock Holmes in this outstanding Ripper-Holmes movie.
The Lodger Motif: Mad Avenger. Upper-crust Ripper kills all prostitutes in his path as he seeks the prostitute who married his brother and thus brought shame on the family name.
Period Atmosphere: Good costuming and set design for both West End and East End London.
Political Rippers: With his brother Mycroft warning him off certain lines of investigation, this film shows Holmes caught between the political interests of the Crown, and his desire to solve the crimes.
Jack the Ripper Meets Sherlock Holmes: The first film to pit Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper… and the first Ripper film of any kind to mention the real Ripper victims by name. Good stuff.

availability
A Study in Terror is currently available only on VHS in the US. An Australian (Region 4) DVD is also available.

a wolf in the fold (1967)
(tv: star trek. nbc. airdate: december 22, 1967)

brief synopsis
When Scotty is implicated in a series of Ripper-like killings on the hedonistic planet of Argellius, Kirk and McCoy pull out all stops to prove him innocent. The only problem is that, with the knife in Scotty’s hands, his fellow senior officers are at a loss for an alternate explanations.

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This episode aired two weeks after “Amok Time” (which introduced the violent Vulcan mating-ritual), and one week before “The Trouble with Tribbles.” Psycho author Robert Bloch has discussed his writing of this episode in his autobiography and in interviews compiled by Randall D. Larson. Bloch wrote teleplays for two other Star Trek episodes: “Cat’s Paw” and “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” He also wrote several other Ripper tales: the short stories “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” and “A Toy for Juliette,” and the novel Night of the Ripper.

types
Investigation Rippers: Well, it’s kind of fun to watch the crew of the Starship Enterprise run around investigating the Ripper crimes in order to save Scotty from the death penalty. There’s even a trial on board the Enterprise.
Jack the Ripper Fantastique: In this famous episode of Star Trek, the Ripper is an immaterial entity which lives off of terror and which can also take over people’s bodies.

availability
“A Wolf in the Fold” is readily available. On DVD, it is bundled with “The Doomsday Machine.” This episode is rentable from Netflix (choose Volume 18).

knife in the darkness (1968 )
(tv: cimarron strip. cbs. airdate: january 25, 1968 )

brief synopsis
On the Christmas Eve after the Ripper’s Whitechapel killing spree, a similar series of killings takes place in the small Western town of Cimarron. The young newsman suspects it to be the work of the same killer who terrorized London, and Marshal Jim Crown must find a way to put a stop to the killings and find the killer.

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Writer Harlan Ellison claims that the producers of this show destroyed his script. Ellison, of course, makes the same claim about his Star Trek episode “City on the Edge of Forever”–the episode most often regarded as the best of the series. In this case, though, the problem is with the plot… and it’s hard to imagine that the producers wrote that. In the plot, the Ripper commits almost as many murders in a period of hours as Jack the Ripper committed in his ten weeks of terror. The plot is also highly derivative of other Ripper cinema, such as Hitchcock’s Lodger. This 90-minute Ripper feature is not terrible. It’s just not all that good. It is, however, of interest since it was written by Harlan Ellison.

types
Investigation Rippers: When a series of Ripper-like killings takes place in a town in the American West on Christmas Eve, 1888, the local newspaper’s reporters investigate the murders. And so does the brother of one of the Whitechapel victims.
The Lodger Motif: Monomaniac. Ripper’s motivation is ambiguous, but he is apparently trying to institute some sort of social reforms.

availability
“Knife in the Darkness” is finally available on DVD. Randy Nelson, who runs the official Cimarron Strip website, told me years ago that actor Stuart Whitman owns the rights, and was planning on re-mastering and re-releasing this series. Since Nelson’s website is promoting the DVD, it’s probably safe to assume that this is an authorized version, even if it is on DVD-R.

© 1999-2008 Cindy Collins Smith. All Rights Reserved.