Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper - together at last! (Murder by Decree (DVD))

Member Name: hogsflesh

Product:	Murder by Decree (DVD)
Date:	06/10/08 (129 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good production values, expensive cast

Disadvantages: Not a great film

A review of just the film. A DVD was available but seems to be out of print now. A region 1 version can be imported for about £5 from amazon.

This is a Sherlock Holmes film from 1979. It's the more famous of the two films that pits Holmes against Jack the Ripper (the other is A Study In Terror). It had quite a large budget, and boasts a very 1970s all-star cast.

It's obviously set in London in the autumn of 1888. Holmes and Dr Watson investigate the Whitechapel murders. It's quite historically accurate in some respects, in that it at least gets the names of the victims and some of the locations right. But with a fictional detective running around, obviously you don't need to worry too much about what did and didn't happen. It follows a popular but ludicrous theory about the Ripper's identity, although for some reason it changes the names of certain important characters. (And, dammit, Prince Albert Victor wasn't the Duke of Clarence in 1888! That came later!)

The streets of Whitechapel are recreated in a way that, while not terribly true to geography, certainly feels right. Much of the film was obviously shot on location, and they found some nicely Victorian looking streets to run around in (bet they've all been demolished now). Baker Street in the film looks nothing like the real Baker Street, past or present, but never mind. The Whitechapel scenes are pleasantly suspenseful, with menace lurking round every corner and there's a good, sinister black coach. But this isn't really a horror film, and there's precious little blood. This has an 18 certificate, but I can't see much reason for that.

Holmes is played pretty well by Christopher Plummer, an actor who never quite recovered from being in The Sound of Music. This Holmes burns with a sense of social justice that you don't often find in the character. He's genuinely affected by the deaths of the prostitutes, allowing for a more human Holmes than usual. It might not be true to Conan Doyle, but it's appropriate to the film. All the usual trappings - pipes, deerstalkers, violins - are present and correct. He doesn't really do much detection, but then we know what the killer looks like right from the start. Oddly, although the film is obviously concerned with making sure the solution to the mystery corresponds to the source material, it doesn't really explain how Holmes throws all the pieces of the puzzle together, meaning that as a detective story it's weak.

Dr Watson is played by James Mason. He's very much in the tradition of unimaginative, plodding Watsons, although his relationship with Holmes is credible and affectionate. Frank Finlay plays Inspector Lestrade (he played the same role in A Study in Terror) and is good enough. David Hemmings is a bit irrelevant as another inspector.

Anthony Quayle plays Sir Charles Warren, the police chief (a real historical character) as a pantomime villain, but then Warren rarely comes off well in Ripper movies. John Gielgud is his usual self as Lord Salisbury. Donald Sutherland chips in with a silly cameo as the psychic Robert Lees (another real person). And Genevieve Bujold is interminable as the dullest madwoman in film history (although perhaps I was bored because I already knew what she was going to say). You might also spot a few future Eastenders in small roles.

The film feels a bit old-fashioned even for 1979. Bearing in mind all that had happened in cinema in the 70s, this feels like a TV movie. Some of the shots of London could be out of a tourist brochure, and the font used for the opening credits would have been retro ten years earlier. The director, Bob Clark, went on to direct Porkies and its sequel; sadly Holmes and Watson don't find themselves spying on naked women in a shower.

It's not a brilliant film. It's too long, at two hours, especially since it meanders along for 20 dreary minutes after the denouement, just so that Holmes can explain the plot for anyone who hadn't been paying attention. Although it pays lip-service to anti-monarchist and anarchist ideas, it backs away from anything radical, and the ending feels like a massive cop out. The music is lame, again feeling old-fashioned; it's rather slushy orchestral stuff for the most part. There's some classic bad cockney period dialogue ("You rotten bleeder! I didn't do you no 'arm, did I?"). And why on earth does one of the murdered women have pipers at her funeral?

This has been the template for subsequent Ripper films, with the entertaining Michael Caine TV movie and the abominable From Hell stealing its most noteworthy ideas. There's never been a particularly good Jack the Ripper film, but this isn't bad. If you want great Ripper fiction, go for the comic-book version of From Hell. If you want great Sherlock Holmes, watch the Jeremy Brett series, or just read the original stories. But if you want Sherlock and Jack in the same place, this is probably the place to go.

Summary: The second Holmes/Ripper film