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Better Late Then Never

Absolutely the worst movie.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The ending places Anne Ford locked in a room when Mary Kelly is murdered  and her "heroic" American boyfriend (of sorts) Sam Lowry rushes in as Jack the Ripper who, was after Anne next, rushes out the window! Why have an Anne Ford and a Sam Lowry in this film? They were never a part of the real story to begin with and for Lowry to be "heroic" with Miss Ford is a crazy idea.  Outside of this mess of an ending, the rest of the film is a good watch - very atmospheric - I just didn't like the way they ended it.Apparently, in this work of fiction, it is Sir David Rogers to be blamed for the murders - another character created just for this film.6.5/10

During a rash of brutal murders, a Scotland Yard inspector asks a visiting American detective for help in quelling the public hysteria while the psycho remains at large and continues his rampage.This one here turned out to be a pretty uneven affair with some good and bad parts. one of the main problems with this one is the fact that instead of focusing on the savage killing and stalking, it concentrate more on the police investigation and them dealing with the locals, and that in turn leads to this one having a lot of scenes where the two policemen are either investigating a crime scene or breaking up a local mob brought on by the inability to catch the killer, which isn't all that fun. Also of note is the fact that it really doesn't focus on the investigation at all, tending to introduce them after the fact, not do much of anything there and show up elsewhere only to scoff and sneer at the locals for the lack of action in solving the crimes, leaving a lot of time to the women targets living their normal lives. when it does get to some good stuff, it's rather enjoyable with admittedly-brutal stalking scenes for the time-period, resulting in some pretty tense sequences. From the opening walk-through of the foggy streets all the way to the stalking of the dancer once she realizes her suitor's true intentions, it has a couple that make for a good time and the finale is also a lot of fun with a good bit of action and a fun resolution, making it the best part of the film. Overall, this one turned out pretty decent but disappointing.Today's Rating-Unrated/PG: Violence.

Jack the Ripper (1959) ** (out of 4) Atmospheric and moody version of the infamous serial killer. This isn't quite as good as the version with Klaus Kinski but it remained entertaining throughout. The director does a great job building up the atmosphere of 1888 London but for some strange reason he never pushes the "mystery" surrounding the case. He throws a lot of suspects at us but for some reason he never tries to build up a mystery film as to who the killer is. There's a big twist at the end, which makes one think the film is going to do something with it but it never does. I'm not exactly sure what the filmmakers were going for but the movie still works.

One of the strange things about Jack the Ripper movies is that, as we get further away in time from the events of 1888, filmmakers seem much more concerned with providing a 'real', historically accurate solution to the mystery. This is in marked contrast to earlier movies about the Ripper, which only used the name as a framework for Gothic horror tales, and the 1959 version is no exception. Absolutely nothing in this movie really happened, but, this actually makes the film more entertaining; I always find it irritating when a director claims to have made a historically accurate Ripper movie, and then falls down on minor details. The makers of this film clearly had no such intentions, something clearly demonstrated by star Lee Patterson's 1950's Elvis quiff, unless his character was seriously ahead of his time where fashion was concerned.As for the story itself, screenwriter Jimmy Sangster (who wrote several of Hammer's best movies) seems to have based his script very loosely on the 'Doctor Stanley' theory put forward by Leonard Matters in his 1929 book 'The Mystery of Jack the Ripper'. In this book, Matters alleged that the murders were committed because Stanley's son caught syphilis from Mary Kelly, the last of the five Ripper victims, and the not-so-good doctor went out looking for her, asking (and then killing) the other four victims for info about Kelly. In the film, Jack the Ripper is looking for a woman named Mary Clark, and he murders women after asking them if they either are, or know the whereabouts of, Mary Clark. The main difference, other than the name of the woman he's looking for, is that the Ripper's son committed suicide (sexually transmitted diseases being a no-no as far the BBFC were concerned at the time).The film is generally pretty good, with decent performances from its two imported American leads (the producers were clearly taking no chances when it came to getting the film a U.S release), with Patterson making a likable hero, and Eddie Byrne (probably best known for playing a similar role the same year in Hammer's 'The Mummy') being suitably dogged as the Inspector on the Ripper's trail. There are maybe too many obvious red herrings, notably the mute, hunchbacked assistant who carries knives around and is nearly lynched by a mob, and John Le Mesurier's doctor who always comes into a room after a murder dressed in the stereotypical Ripper garb, but the revelation of the killer's identity is actually quite surprising, and the end sequence, with the Ripper crushed by a lift in a brief colour sequence, is suitably melodramatic (even if it does look like what it was, that is to say red paint squirted through a hole).