This movie would probably be more fun to watch in its original British presentation, before American distributor Joseph Levine got hold of it and added a gimmicky prologue and different music. The basic story holds up, and there are some effective performances by a typically solid English cast. Eddie Byrne is good as the no nonsense police inspector, and George Rose has a brief scene as the father of one of the victims.The scenes of the Ripper stalking his victims are suspenseful, and the murders more violent than any cinematic Ripper killings had been portrayed before. The settings are adequate at showing 1888 London's Whitechapel and the Victorian atmosphere is reasonably well shown. The one incredible flaw in the version most Americans have seen is the startling and totally inappropriate use of a modern jazz score to accompany the stalking and killing scenes. Every time we see the mysterious figure of a man in a cape and top hat, carrying the little black bag, emerging from a foggy alley to pursue a victim, our ears are suddenly assaulted with a blaring, brassy Fifties jazz theme that would have been appropriate to an episode of Peter Gunn or Mike Hammer, but is utterly out of place in the Victorian England of the story. It is such a jarring, incongruous effect, that it takes away from the otherwise effectively sinister visuals. Whoever thought this was a good idea and why is beyond me. Compare this misplaced music with the brilliantly ominous score by Hugo Friedhofer for The Lodger (1944) and you'll see what I mean.The movie is adequate , but there are far more compelling and better done Ripper films, for those interested in the grim history of Jack and his prostitute victims.

This film was on the other night on American Movie "Classics". I was waiting for the last shot when the ripper is crushed by the elevator to see if AMC showed the color shot. Not only was it not in color-they cut the whole scene. All you see is a reaction shot of the two guys in the elevator looking at the floor in horror, but you never see what they're looking at. The only place to see this film is on AMC and they butcher it. Is there any reason on earth to watch AMC? They pan and scan, cut for commercials, speed up films, show previews during closing credits, and censor. That's it. I haven't watched this disgrace of a channel in years and I never will again. Who the hell watches it anyway? Thank God for TCM. If anyone reads this post, please tell every film fan you know to boycott this station. It has no reason to exist.

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).

Every once in a while one finds a film that is mostly mediocre but has one redeeming feature.The bright spot of Jack the Ripper is it's beautiful lightning. Some B&W films are just gray when to me the beauty of it is in the strong contrast between light and shadow.All in all this is a very easy film to like. It is beautifully naive in it's portrayal of it's sex murder topic yet at the same time it succeeds in making a powerful point about lynching mob attitude.The characters are rather predictable and bland with one exception: the young American policeman visiting London. With his accent and idealism displayed under a greasy fifties Buddy Holly hairstyle (remember that this is a period piece set in the 19th century)he brings a nice cowboy twist to the legend of Jack the Ripper.