"Murder by Decree is a more expensive production, extends the topic to weightier villainy, sticks a bit closer to the historical facts where it has to..."

In an earlier article, we studied how Victorian serial killer Jack The Ripper was a staple in some notable horror films.  Probably most notable of these are the two films in which the Ripper comes up again the fictional Great Detective himself.  So, slip on your deerstalker and fire up your cherrywood pipe, for the game is afoot as we again examine those cinematic outings where...

By DON MANKOWSKI 

(Editor's note:  Last month, we commenced this two-part series on how the great fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, cinematically took on the all-too-real serial killer, Jack The Ripper, in 1966's A Study In Terror.  In this second and last installment, we look at the Holmes-Ripper bout as handled in 1979's Murder By Decree.)

 London, 1888. It’s a late start at the Covent Garden Opera House. John H. Watson, M.D., and Mr. Sherlock Holmes survey a rather restless audience. It seems that the Prince of Wales is expected to attend, and that his tardiness is delaying the evening’s performance. When the heir to the throne does enter his box, he is greeted by catcalls from patrons in the cheap seats. Dr. Watson is appalled at such behavior towards his future King. "No respect," he gasps. "It’s a damned disgrace!"

"If the Prince wants more respect, he should conduct his affairs with more discretion," offers Holmes.

Ever the British patriot, Watson leads a chant of "God save His Royal Highness!" and gets the respectable opera goers to join in, drowning out the riff-raff. "Well done, old fellow," says Holmes wryly. "You’ve saved the day."

Still, you cannot hear the strains of "God Save the Queen" over in the streets of the East End. There we briefly share a hunter’s eye view, as a lone woman is stalked through dark and narrow alleys. It’s a man with abnormally dark brown eyes who lunges at the woman and begins to choke her mercilessly.

Jack the Ripper has claimed another victim.

Another murder, the third in a series, constitutes news, and it has already made it to papers delivered to the patrons exiting Lucrezia Borgia at the opera house. Riding home in an open carriage though chilly October air, Holmes and Watson discuss the issue. It seems that Holmes has not been called into consultation on the case.

A shadowy group of men awaits the duo at 221B Baker Street. It’s a citizen’s committee of East End merchants. Their spokesman, Mr. Makins, appeals to a distracted Holmes to help put away the Ripper, for the safety of their women and the solvency of their businesses. Holmes promises to think about it and dismisses the mob. It’s obvious, to Watson and to us, that Holmes mental engine is gearing up; the man seems to be in a trance.

In the East End, a cab stops and its passenger offers a ride to a lone streetwalker, ostensibly for her safety. Simultaneously, Holmes plays at his violin as Watson tries to sleep. From the cab emerges a white-haired man carrying a dreadful burden: a bloody corpse that he drops to the cobblestones. As the cab driver waits, the man busies himself. "Wake up old fellow," Holmes commands Watson, "game’s afoot!" An anonymous message has informed the detective of yet another homicide.

At the murder scene are Scotland Yard Inspectors Lestrade and Foxborough, and even—recently implicated in the Bloody Sunday incident to which Watson will allude—Sir Charles Warren, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Although Foxborough knows Watson to be a doctor, he warns him to prepare himself for the sight: the body has been mutilated in some outrageous fashion.

"I’ve no time for his sort of bloody amateur," rages Warren. "Consulting detectives! Get him out of here!" To Watson’s astonishment, Holmes withdraws without complaint. The three officials are soon drawn away to attend to some graffiti relating to the case which Warren wants removed at once, as he considers it dangerously inflammatory. 

The next day finds the detective busy at some chemical analysis in his Baker Street rooms, as the doctor breakfasts while reading his paper. The topic of discussion is a certain woman they both noted observing the criminal investigation the previous night. Watson’s pursuit of the last pea on his plate, which morsel keeps skittering away from his fork, annoys Holmes to the point where he seizes the fork and mashes the elusive orb into a green paste. Watson is put out by Holmes abrupt and total assault upon so defenseless an object. However and more importantly, Holmes has received an anonymous note requesting his stealthy presence.

Holmes and Watson report to the dark, deserted Elizabeth Wharf on the Thames. A seemingly disembodied voice advises them: it’s a man in a boat beneath the dock. "If you want to know more about the Ripper murders, Mister Holmes, I refer you to Robert James Lees." The scene is witnessed by the dark-eyed man, who lurks just out of sight. Once the informant’s voice fades, Holmes and Watson are left alone for just a moment before a dock guard evicts them. The informant, who turns out to be Makins of the so-called citizens’ committee rows to shore, whereupon the dark-eyed man slays him with one swift thrust of a sword.

At his chemical bench, Holmes prepares a special concoction prior to another venture out into the night. Watson arms himself with his old service revolver. Holmes declares that he is not entirely unarmed, for he wears a long scarf with weights sewn into the ends, and demonstrates its effectiveness by reducing a flask to glass shards all over Mrs. Hudson’s floors. (Watson, having served in India, recognizes this as a Thuggee device.)

Holmes brushes his chemical compound onto the wall that Sir Charles ordered re-plastered. The covered inscription flashes into visibility long enough to be recorded in the sleuth’s notebook. Back at Baker Street, Watson and Holmes ponder the message:

THE JUWES ARE NOT THE MEN THAT WILL BE BLAMED FOR NOTHING

It’s a puzzle. Holmes asks the bewildered Watson for solitude, with only his pipe and tobacco for company until morning. 

"I have seen the man known as Jack the Ripper," claims Robert Lees. Not as you might think, he explains, but by intuition. Certainly not a happy medium, Lees is a world-weary, wild-eyed eccentric. Lees claims to having seen the murder before it happened. When he approached the police, they treated him as a raving madman. However, Holmes realizes that Lees’ account squares with the facts of the Annie Chapman slaying. Later, adds Lees, he saw him again on the street, this time in person from a streetcar.

About this time, Inspector Foxboro arrives at the Lees home, and hastens the detective into the presence of the commissioner. Sir Charles Warren is aware that the man known as Makins was a revolutionary, accuses Holmes of similar treason, and suggests that Holmes killed the man after a political falling-out. The charge fails when the guard from the docks appears to provide Holmes with an alibi. Foxborough warns Holmes not to cross Sir Charles. "He’s a dangerous man. He has many secret friends."

As Warren issues a stern warning to Holmes to stay away from the case, the detective startles him by offering a peculiar handshake in which Warren is compelled to participate. Holmes takes the opportunity to snatch a rather plain ring off the commissioner’s finger. The top of the ring rotates to display an ornate insignia. The ring and the handshake identify Sir Charles as a thirty-third degree member of the Secret Order of Freemasons.

Warren maintains that he covered up the message on the wall to protect London’s Jews from anti-Semitic mob reprisal. Holmes reminds him that the "Juwes" of the message are another matter altogether. As a parting shot, Holmes enacts another bizarre gesture, a diagonal slashing across his own chest. Warren is flustered, and offers a final warning before bidding the man good day.

Back at Baker Street, Holmes informs Watson that he has studied the subject, and that the concealed inscription was clearly a reference to Masonic lore. "Three men who murdered the Grand Master, the builder of Solomon’s Temple," he explains. "Their names were Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum. Hence, Juwes."

"The things you know, Holmes!" says Watson in wonder.

"When they were brought before Solomon, they confessed to their guilt," continues Holmes, "and Jubela said ‘Oh, that my throat had been cut across. And Jubelo said ‘Oh, that my left breast had been torn open and my heart and vitals taken and thrown over my left shoulder.’ And Jubelum said, ‘My body severed in the midst.’"

Watson at once recognizes the mutilation of the Ripper victims in the ritual. "In what way could these wretched women have been involved?"

"Ask them," suggests Holmes. By which he means, their still-living friends. Watson is to gather information from the Whitechapel prostitutes.

A very sooty chimney sweep forces his way into the Lees house by acting as if he owns the place. Once in, he reveals himself as Holmes in disguise, paying an unannounced call upon Lees. Once the psychic had given them details no one could have known, the police were more disposed to believe him. Lees explains that at their request, he visited the Stride murder site, and was drawn to a house in an elegant area, where a man and his wife were interviewed regarding the crime. However, by official order, he cannot reveal just who was visited. Sir Charles has threatened him into silence, and Holmes appears to respect this.

At a soup kitchen in Whitechapel, Watson sits amongst the women of the street, and asks about the Ripper victims. When the name of Mary Kelly is offered, Watson senses tension amongst them, and pursues the line. One woman takes the opportunity to lead him on. As she flirts, a man watches in the background. She drags the good doctor into an alleyway

It’s an extortion attempt. The mystery man intrudes and threatens to expose Watson’s dalliance with a whore. Watson is prepared, produces a police whistle, and the law arrives before the tussle can get too serious. "He’s the Ripper!" says the woman abruptly. To avoid mob violence, the police must arrest Watson for his own protection.

Holmes provides bail for his old friend. Watson is quite annoyed, but once back at 221B, he shares his research, charting the Whitechapel crimes on a chalkboard. Mary Kelly appears to be a connecting point for Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Liz Stride and Catherine Eddowes, the four victims. Holmes asks Watson to search the medical directories for a physician in a certain area, hoping to identify the man whom Lees designated, and then hurries off to attend the Eddowes funeral services.

Amidst a grim procession to a Scottish dirge, Holmes pursues the auburn-haired mystery woman, who is indeed Mary Kelly. A cab stalks them. Holmes catches up to Mary at the desolate wharf and manages to gain her trust in a short time. The woman fears for her life, is weary for lack of sleep, and is torn by guilt. She shared with the prostitutes of Whitechapel the secret of Annie Crook’s child, a baby left with her when Crook was taken away. Now, the women have been killed, and Annie Crook is shut away. Mary fears for her life and that of the child. Suddenly, the sinister cab is upon them. Run down, Holmes is rendered unconscious and the woman is spirited away.

Annie Crook is not to be found at St. Christopher’s Hospital, but has been moved to a virtual asylum near Reading, as Mary Kelly suggested. Sir Thomas Spivey was the physician who ordered her confinement, and indeed, he’s one of the names on Watson’s list of possible targets of the Robert Lees investigation.

Following a train and coach to Reading, Annie Crook is located in a dark dungeon, surrounded by wailing madwomen. The woman is nearly catatonic until Holmes shows her the printed name "Eddy," at which point she talks freely. She corroborates Mary Kelly’s involvement with her baby. Blaming herself for the separation, she awaits rescue from her beloved Eddy.

Holmes’ outrage at Annie’s condition prompts him to attack and assault the doctor in charge. As he is restrained, we are startled to see a single tear escape the trained eye that has seen so much that is terrible. Holmes hurries back to London, hoping to spare Mary Kelly the tragic fate.

In the East End, tangible terror radiates from a dingy, fire-lit flat, from which tortured moans ensue. The detective and the doctor draw nearer on their patrol, but are startled to encounter Foxborough lurking alone.

"Where is Mary Kelly?" demands Holmes, explaining to Watson that Foxborough is in fact a radical, the secret informer! Makins was his agent. The inspector admits that he cares not for the people, but is only using the case to bring down the monarchy. No matter that some people must die. And as for Mary Kelly…

"She trusted you, Mister Holmes. She came out of hiding because she trusted you. They got her, because she trusted the mighty Sherlock Holmes. They used you. We used you."

"Foxborough," warns Holmes, "if she dies, and you come under my hand, expect no mercy. You have my word on it."

Moments later, Holmes and Watson will burst into the dwelling of horror. A blood-spattered, white-haired man is interrupted from a grim task. The dark-eyed man who stands by hurls blazing coals, and then attacks the pair with a red-hot poker. Watson painfully takes the searing metal in the chest. The dark-eyed man flees, dragging the other along.

Holmes sees to Watson, leaves the pistol for him, and pursues the villains to the now-familiar cab. He is slashed with a whip as the one man races off. The bloody-handed surgeon is found inside the cab, his mind evidently gone.

Foxborough intercepts the maniac, but is promptly butchered. At the docks, the dark-eyed man with a wicked sword battles Holmes, who is armed with just his special scarf. After much savage fighting amidst the wharf paraphernalia, the villain is flogging the detective with a hanging chain, when a superhuman effort by Holmes hurls the assassin off the dock and into a fishing net. The man becomes entangled within and chokes to death. Help arrives in the form of Lestrade and crew as Holmes collapses, expressing concern for Watson.  

Some days later, Holmes rides to Parliament, his cheek still scarred, his arm in a sling. There he has been summoned to an audience with the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and Sir Charles Warren. It should be obvious that he has some hold over these powerful men, as he soon demonstrates. It appears that the detective has made charges that, according to the Prime Minister, are a threat to "the social order of this country."

Holmes patiently lays the case for his accusation. Annie Crook, he begins, was infatuated with a nobleman, who entered into a form of marriage with her. When the nobleman tired of her, he left her, along with their child. "When the existence of the child was discovered, and its religion – Catholic – the government suddenly became concerned…because her lover, her husband, however you call him, her seducer, was His Grace, the Duke of Clarence and Avondale, Albert Victor Christian Edward, Earl of Athlone, Heir Presumptive to the throne of England—known as Eddy to his intimate friends."

The specter of a succession outside the Church of England is a fearsome one. Her Majesty’s government wished that the problem did not exist, and zealous loyalists sprang into action, Holmes explains. Annie Chapman was taken, allegedly on behalf of "Eddy," then disposed to the asylum. In the search for Mary Kelly, the friends with whom she shared the secret of Annie’s child were eliminated. "And thus," says Holmes, "was born the myth of Jack the Ripper." Holmes admits that, to his everlasting regret, he led the murderers to Mary Kelly, who was tortured, but who died without revealing the child’s whereabouts.

The prime movers in the atrocities were William Slade and Sir Thomas Spivey, whom we recognize as the dark-eyed man and the white-haired man, the driver of the threatening cab and its frequent passenger. Slade first attacked, and Spivey butchered the victims according to the archaic ritual, and using loyalty to the crown as an excuse.

Banging down a series of scrolls and packets, one after another, Holmes produces documentation of the marriage, the birth, the incarceration. The Prime Minister notes that Slade is dead, Spivey is insane, and Warren’s career is in ruins. Will we be seeing at last Prince Albert in the can? No, Holmes absolves the officials of complicity. Their suggestion was enough to set the events in motion. Still, as all of those involved were Freemasons, they had to cover their fellows’ transgressions.

Holmes does not contain his contempt for all of them. "There is not now and there never has been a danger to the monarchy. That demon existed only in the minds of the few men in this room. It was your fear that led you to tolerate abominations."

Holmes states that he could bring down the government without compunction. However, so long as Annie Crook’s child remains unharmed, he agrees to remain silent on the matter.

He also demands the release of Annie, but the officials inform him that the poor woman is already free; she died by her own hand the night after her revelations to the detective. As Holmes departs, he reflects that he will always have the death of Mary Kelly on his conscience, and that the others must live with the knowledge of what they did to those tragic women. 

Home again at Baker Street, Holmes despairs for mankind. It is Watson who answers him. "Holmes, you did much more than any other man could have attempted. There is still decency. Mary Kelly, and poor Annie Crook, dying to protect the child."

"You’re right," he says, "there is decency. If nowhere else, it still resides in that battered breast of yours." Holmes announces that he will play his violin for a time—that is, if Watson has no objection.

At the fade, there is a brief scene of a little girl at play in a sunny garden, overseen by nuns.

Murder By Decree, a film made in England by a Canadian company, some fourteen years after the Holmes vs. the Ripper film we discussed upon another occasion, A Study in Terror. It had a boost from a modern-day detective story. The American (and international) public had only just lived through the scandal within the Nixon administration, wherein fanatic lieutenants bent and broke the law, then moved to conceal the facts at very high levels to insulate the chief from the ramifications. (Does the invisible informant Makins suggest "Deep Throat"?) Although the idea of a government conspiracy lurking behind the Ripper crimes had been around for decades, it struck a more resonant note in the 1970s.

This film presents a flawed, very complex Sherlock Holmes, boisterous or quiet, arrogant or sympathetic as the situation demands. He wears Inverness and deerstalker to the opera, for heaven’s sake, but has a proper white tie and tails beneath. Although the film curiously lacks a good episode of detection, we do see Holmes perform as a chemist, a street fighter, and at last a lawyer.

Christopher Plummer is a fine actor, forever famous, alas, for The Sound Of Music and a Star Trek film, but he has the requisite classical background, having played Oedipus the King, Commodus the Emperor of Rome, and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (in a production on location at Elsinore Castle). He played Holmes upon another occasion, in a short television production of "Silver Blaze" about the same time. Plummer is truly superb in the climactic presentation of the case, and hints at having learned something from it all in the final scenes.

Certainly one of the most distinguished actors to essay the role of Dr. Watson, James Mason acquits himself nobly, despite being too old for the role by prevailing standards. The long-suffering Watson can barely contain his exasperation at Holmes mercurial and eccentric ways (such as using the good doctor’s hypodermic needles to clean out his pipes), but the respect, admiration and affection shared by the old friends is undeniable. (The foolish Adventure of the Solitary Pea illuminates Watson’s sense of propriety and Holmes’s penchant for efficient action.) It’s a fine coda for a career that gave us such films as 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and Journey To The Center of the Earth.

The film boasts an excellent supporting cast, heavy on Canadian players. Donald Sutherland is an impressive presence as the very odd Lees, and Susan Clark is memorable as the doomed Mary Kelly, though seen only in furtive glimpses. Add on Genivieve Bujold and David Hemmings, and one cannot ask for more.

Frank Finlay had earlier been cast as Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard in A Study In Terror. He has, however, little to do in either film. More impressive is Sir Anthony Quayle, following up his earlier performance as Dr. Murray by enacting Sir Charles Warren. Legendary actor John Gielgud, who appears as the Prime Minister used to portray Sherlock Holmes in radio broadcasts long ago! (Study’s Georgia Brown somehow missed this one, but would appear in another Sherlockian film, The Seven Per Cent Solution in 1976.)

The whores are more realistic, a good bit less attractive than those in Study. One shopworn lass even loses a tooth while trying to charm Watson. This is a tale of violence and blood, but the horrors are hinted at rather than shown directly. The photographer (Reginald Morris) makes good use of red lighting and out-of-focus detail to accomplish this. His prowling camera work turns the night streets into the innards of a huge, threatening creature. Paul Zaza and Carl Zittrer contributed a varied and lovely musical score.

Directed by Bob Clark, Murder By Decree runs over two hours due to some flabby editing; much pointless and awkward dialogue remains. The Robert Lees subplot is certainly unnecessary. I suspect that the producers had Sutherland under contract and had to find a role for him. His character does provide a clue towards Dr. Spivey, but it’s difficult to accept the rational Mr. Holmes consulting a parapsychologist. However, the script does make some effort to root the Lees observations to reality—he does see the Ripper in the flesh at one point.

Murder’s screenwriter is less facile than Study’s at incorporating material from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Holmes, on the coach to the asylum, alerts Watson: "…[I] draw your attention to the peculiar circumstance of the man who is following us."

"There’s nobody following us," replies Watson.

"It is to that peculiar circumstance that I draw your attention."

It is a really lame attempt to incorporate the famous exchange from "Silver Blaze." Oh well, there is a nice touch when the horses for a moment refuse to gallop on to the feared building upon arrival.

In last month's installment, I gave high marks to the 1965 film A Study In Terror, which told another version of the tale of England’s greatest detective and England’s most notorious criminal, with another solution. Both films feature superb casts, and memorable portrayals of the principals. Murder by Decree is a more expensive production, extends the topic to weightier villainy, sticks a bit closer to the historical facts where it has to.

If I had to choose one of the films, I’d probably come down on the side of Murder By Decree, but really, the only proper thing to do is to enjoy both of them. Neither film is readily available on video. That situation must be rectified.

(Don Mankowski has never solved a criminal case, but was a member of The Hansom Wheels, Columbia, S.C. scion society of the Baker Street Irregulars from 1977 through 1985. That group is still going strong after a quarter century. So is Don, more or less. He has a modest Web page.)

Thanks again, Don!  Although we personally prefer A Study In Terror for its more traditionalist approach to Sherlock Holmes and Jack The Ripper, there's no doubt that Murder By Decree has many things to recommend it.  It is truly a class production.  Who would have thought it was directed by the man who gave us Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things and Porky's?  

Article copyright © Don Mankowski

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