Jack the Ripper [1976]

Let's just establish right here, right now, the fact that Jess Franco's 1976 version of "Jack the Ripper" has exactly nothing to do with historical veracity. The still-unidentified serial murderer who cut short the lives of at least five prostitutes between 1888 and 1891 in the seedy Whitechapel district of London serves as a jumping-off point for Franco to create a moody character study that imposes his own themes on a skeleton of fact. With that official Ripperologist Warning out of the way, let me just say that I'll take the substitution of "Klaus Kinski" for "Historical Crime Procedural" any frikkin' day of the week. Watching Mr. Kinski emote provides one of the great pleasures of genre cinema--the man had an overwhelming cinematic presence, and y'all know how I feel about those brooding Germans. The pairing of Kinski and Franco in a Victorian murder mystery movie promises quite a bit of joy, but does it deliver on these promises...?

"Jack the Ripper" is a revisiting of Franco's signature Dr. Orloff character, the emotionally tortured, morally kinked doctor whose obsessions lead him to murder and destruction. Usually this involves a heavy dose of "face-stealing" with a soupcon of "incest"--what this movie lacks in the former, it more than makes up for in the latter. Kinski plays Dr. Dennis Orloff, a London physician whose troubled childhood has inspired him to donate his services to the poorest of the city's denizens, but has also made him into a terrifying misogynist that stalks, rapes, murders and mutilates prostitutes. His assistant, the character who would be named Morpho in one of the other Orloff films, is a facially-scarred woman named Frieda who is utterly devoted to assisting the doctor for reasons never really explored in the movie.

Produced by the same West German company that funded Franco's notorious and gorgeous Satan-in-the-convent shocker "Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun," "Jack the Ripper" shares some of the look and feel of that film, though it's sadly less resonant than the later movie. The cinematography is sharp and the lighting skillful, but where "Love Letters" used its locations to its advantage, "Jack the Ripper" feels artificial. For those people who are still rooting for the truffle of historical authenticity, just give it up--the London of this film is totally un-London-ey, no matter how much faux fog the art director fills the set with. There's a certain creaky charm to the sets, with touches like the OLIVER TWIST pub not going unnoticed by me. The costumes (particularly the costumes used to dress the female characters) are an actually-kinda-endearing hodgepodge of community-theatre-grade "My Fair Lady" gowns and hats in an array of shiny, psychedelic fabrics. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there was a smoking ban on set to reduce the chance of Eurobabes bursting into flame because her petroleum-based gown went alight.

The supporting cast does a creditable job in the daunting task of backing up Kinski's performance. Herbert Fux* appears in a typically Fux-ian role as a greedy fisherman who is a patient of Orloff's who catches wise to the doctor's nocturnal activities. Perhaps the most often-remarked-upon appearance is that of Lina Romay in the role of the exotic cabaret performer Marika who flaunts her charms in an assless teddy**. Her doll-like mouth and wide-eyed expressiveness are used to great effect in her all-too-brief appearance in this film. The scene in which Marika is raped and murdered by Orloff is the film's most disturbing, due in no small part to the fact that Romay's murmurs evoke ecstasy as much as--if not maybe more than--the last breaths of a dying woman.

*I'm still allowed to giggle, even though I know it's pronounced "Fewks."

**If people can say "assless chaps," even though chaps are de facto assless, then *I* can say "assless teddy."

Speaking of that murder scene, there's some really squicky gore in this flick--all the more so because it feels abrupt and aggressive, and is overtly sexualized. There's a direct link between the sex act and the trauma to the female body that's underscored by Kinski's emotive performance. His face conveys a bone-deep lust and perversion, and his movements are animalistic. It's effective and wrenching enough that the scenes of Orloff's violence make one forget about the rather silly trappings of the rest of the film.

The story of Police Inspector Selby and his romance with prima ballerina Cynthia (shades of "Awful Dr. Orloff" once again!) isn't terribly engaging, and never musters up a fraction of the emotion of the Ripper portions of the movie. Some good choices are made during the "detection" sequences, though, such as the inclusion of the blind man whose keen senses lead to Orloff's eventual unmasking. This character's use of smell, hearing and almost-preternatural perception underscore the sensual elements of the film. Much to my delight, the identikit/police sketch sequence was included, resulting in a rather excellent Kinski caricature.

Alas, the promising build-up of this movie leads to a sputtering-out conclusion that tarnishes the impact of the preceding ninety minutes. It felt as if the script-writer needed to put a bow on the story and was averse to the kind of fiery conflagrations that mark the end of, say, a Corman Poe flick. We're left with a strangely unemotional sorta-ending to mark what's otherwise been a pretty darned effective, and sometimes downright alarming, character study.

Franco fans, Kinski fans, and fans of Lina Romay's ass could do a LOT worse than this movie (no, really--A LOT WORSE; take my word on this). Feel free to imagine your own coda, though, as the one provided leaves plenty to be desired.

For more Foggye Olde Londone, check out the Flickr gallery of images from "Jack the Ripper" here.