Rating: 4/5
Hooptober 2.0 | 18/31 | Before 1970 3/5
MURDER. REWARD. Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. The citizens of Whitechapel must take action against the fiend who is responsible for murders being committed in our midst. The police have proved inadequate. We intend offering a substantial reward to anyone, citizen or otherwise, who shall give information bringing the murderer or murderers to justice.
The Weavers Arms closes and drunk patrons pour out into the street. One yells to Katie to watch for Jack the Ripper. Katie stumbles under an archway to meet a stranger. She screams. A police whistle sounds. Officers and citizens run to the streets, gathering around Katie’s body — another murder, right beneath their noses. The newsies spread the word. Citizens call for the paper from windows and doorways.
A man in a cloak and top hat saunters past Slade Walk to 18 Montague Street, holding an advertisement for an available room. He meets Robert and Ellen Bonting, giving his name as Slade. Ellen shows him an attic room, once a maid’s quarters. It’s perfect, especially with the kitchen burner. It will allow him the heat necessary to perform his medical experiments.
Robert is in dire straits because of a poor investment, so he does not notice what occurs in the house. For example, once Slade moves in, he turns all the framed photos to face the wall. Ellen offers to take the portraits down but hopes he doesn’t mind actresses. Ellen’s niece, Kitty, also lives in the house. She is a successful musical performer. When Kitty meets Slade, she finds herself drawn to his brooding demeanor.
Meanwhile, Scotland Yard dispatches Detective John Warwick to hunt down the Ripper. While he doesn’t understand the Ripper’s motive, he sees one clear pattern — all the women he murders are former actresses.
The film incorporates the lighting strategies of film noir to give it a more romantic and striking atmosphere.
It doesn’t rely on the shock of seeing a murder but uses clever symbolic imagery to hint at the carnage — a smashed wine bottle spilling onto the cobblestones, or the rush of muddied water in the drainage channel.
Laird Cregar’s Slade is such a specific weirdo — no human alive today would trust a man who goes out at night and washes his hands in the Thames. Cregar brings pathos that sets a new standard for how to portray a serial killer.
The film touches on the treatment of aging actresses. The up-and-comer sees only their success. In the recesses are those who have grown older and faded from the limelight. Annie, an actress with whom Kitty worked, comes by the theater to see her old dressing room. These are the women that Slade finds and murders.
What Slade and these women share is an unbreakable loneliness. For the actresses, it’s the now empty room, once full of life. For Slade, it’s the dead brother he loved, and obsessed over. Slade would murder these reminders of what led to his brother’s demise.
Ellen catches on pretty early to Slade’s behavior and sees several connections between him and the Ripper. But Robert is such a gaslighting ass that he makes her doubt things she’s seen. There’s a point where it’s hilarious, especially when he talks to Kitty.
— Yours is a beauty that could destroy men. — Oh, is that a compliment? — Or it could destroy you. Have you thought of that? — That’s a very queer thing to say.
The climax is incredible! The build of tension, Slade creeping in shadows towards the camera, the push and pull of the score — I had chills running up my arms at points.
This film isn’t my favorite featuring Jack the Ripper — that honor still belongs to the incredible Pandora’s Box — but it’s magnificent. Hitchcock’s adaptation of the novel in 1927 is the definitive adaptation. Though I enjoyed that film, I prefer this one.