Jack the Ripper (1988)

[Christine1932]

SPOILERS AHOY!
Sorry if this is already posted...
British TV series written by David Wickes and Derek Marlowe and directed by Wickes. With Michael Caine, Lewis Collins, Jane Seymour, Armand Assante, Susan George, Lysette Anthony and Ray McAnally .
Wonderful costumes, sets and photography, atmosphere for Jack to cut, great score varying from pseudo-Victorian grandness to thriller scenes... Of course acting is often unwatchable, rewriting the historical facts is obnoxious and both Psycho-logy and Gull as killer are crap. But I think it´s fascinating work.

[BillyE]

I say it's the best Ripper movie set to film so far. It has it's flaws, especially at the end, but a very watchable movie. As for the facts of the case, I figure it to be 80% fiction, and 20% fact. That's better than the 1% fact from most movies. They actually got more than the names right. :-)

[Mike Covell]

I was stopped in the street by an old lady recently, and she pointed out that JTR was a Royal. I asked her how she knew, and she told me "I saw it on that film!"

[D.Meakin]

I remember that being on tv, i was 10 when i saw it and that was the first time i had ever heard the name Jack The Ripper, i did not even know that he had was not apprehended!!!!
It was i remember a superbly intriguing film!
It is WAY better than From Hell.... that is diabolical.

[Christine1932]

Diabolical From Hell!
My father used this version as evidence, too, but he is old and ill. I agree, this is, with all of it´s flaws, one of the best movies, and better than From Hell - I think FH has it´s merits, it looks great, but I personally prefer this version.

[D.Meakin]

I never thought it as credible when you look at the serious evidence, i think it only enhanced the "Royal Conspiracy theory"
From Hell has a good cast but poorly written

[sdreid]

Mediocre is the new good in this genre.

[D.Meakin]

People making poor films just to make a profit? surely not!

[Scotland Yard]

The Michael Caine series has many good points in its favour but disappoints on many others which seems to be the case for all Ripper related dramatisations. I wonder if anyone will ever attempt an ambitiously authentic documentary-style recreation of the Ripper events? Surely it would find its ready-made audience.

[D.Meakin]

Of course they would. Would it be too much to ask though?
I feel that on the film side of things, they have to dramatise it with the grandiose (royal conspiracy) otherwise they think it is not going to be any good.

Look at the #1 person on suspect list, a cotton merchant from Liverpool.
Not very good for the film industry!
All we ask is the truth.......................

[kensei]

Wow, I'm having deja vu. I started a thread about this show a long time back and I was just looking for it but it must have been before the big crash hapened. I have a love-hate relationship with this movie, which I still have on VHS tape from its first showing 21 years ago. Sometimes I have thought of it as a perfect mix of trivial accuracy and utter crap, but when I really think about it most of the supposedly accurate parts are only based on urban legend-type things that have since been found to be untrue. Still, all the events are shown in their proper sequence, and the sets- especially those of the murder sites- are superb.

Most of the things I love about it are just the product of good filmmaking, rather than historical accuracy. Michael Caine was in my opinion the most perfect choice in the world to play Abberline at that time, though he really should have grown the facial hair to better look the part. (I've read that he offered to but was instructed not to.) The scene in which he brutally interrogates the coach driver John Netley in the jail cell and makes him duplicate the "Juwes" writing on the wall- I'm sorry, though it is of course complete fiction, it is quite simply one hell of a gripping scene. Then there is Lysette Anthony. As an American I knew her only through syndicated British t.v. shows like "Three Up, Two Down," but I'd become a fan of her's before she played Mary Jane Kelly. Her natural hair color seemed to be a light brown, so since Mary Jane was said to have been "ginger haired" or a redhead I don't get why Lysette colored her hair to near black to play the role. But whatever, she nailed the Irish accent. Some have criticized it- "MJK would have had a mixed accent from her Irish and Welsh upbringing," etc. Let's not be nit-picky. Lysette did a fine job. And though her murder scene is mostly fictionalized and completely ignores the eyewitness accounts, the one tidbit of real tirvia they throw in packs an emotional punch, that being that Mary Jane was heard singing. Lysette singing "Sweeeeet Violets" to herself as the Ripper approaches her door makes me shudder every time I watch it.

Things wrong with the movie- The actor Richard Mansfield was never a main suspect as he is portrayed. The actor playing the psychic Mr. Lees looked absolutely nothing like the real Lees and is too young, and his whole involvement with the "Royal Conspiracy" theory and indeed that whole theory itself was absolutely not on the radar during the period of the Ripper crimes but only came out years later. The portrayal of George Lusk was completely and utterly fictionalized, turning him from a respectable building contractor and concerned citizen into a rabble rousing, torch waving anarchist. And why, oh why, do portrayals of Abberline on film always see the need to turn him into a struggling alcoholic or drug addict? It is simply not true. Neither is the fact that he was a married man ever portrayed, or that he and Godley were not direct partners who were always in each others' company.

Well, basically I think that the 1988 centennial miniseries "Jack the Ripper" is a really good movie for anyone who knows nothing of the real case, well acted, well directed, etc. But for all of us afficinanados, it is a maddening mixture of inaccuracies and very endearing emotional high-fives.

[Christine1932]

I never thought it as credible when you look at the serious evidence, i think it only enhanced the "Royal Conspiracy theory"
From Hell has a good cast but poorly written

FH has great look - untypically for modern films, quite frankly - and good moments, but it suffers from cooler-than-thou attitude by the film-makers, their "street crredibility" by handling murders and Abberline´s character , and being based on Moore´s overrated comic book where he just spews his hate toward establishment of Victorian England. Perhaps rightfully so, but he jumps into Whitechapel sewers by forgetting - like so many people - that malicious lying is filthy habit.

[Christine1932]

Wow, I'm having deja vu. I started a thread about this show a long time back and I was just looking for it but it must have been before the big crash hapened. I have a love-hate relationship with this movie, which I still have on VHS tape from its first showing 21 years ago. Sometimes I have thought of it as a perfect mix of trivial accuracy and utter crap, but when I really think about it most of the supposedly accurate parts are only based on urban legend-type things that have since been found to be untrue. Still, all the events are shown in their proper sequence, and the sets- especially those of the murder sites- are superb.

Most of the things I love about it are just the product of good filmmaking, rather than historical accuracy. Michael Caine was in my opinion the most perfect choice in the world to play Abberline at that time, though he really should have grown the facial hair to better look the part. (I've read that he offered to but was instructed not to.) The scene in which he brutally interrogates the coach driver John Netley in the jail cell and makes him duplicate the "Juwes" writing on the wall- I'm sorry, though it is of course complete fiction, it is quite simply one hell of a gripping scene. Then there is Lysette Anthony. As an American I knew her only through syndicated British t.v. shows like "Three Up, Two Down," but I'd become a fan of her's before she played Mary Jane Kelly. Her natural hair color seemed to be a light brown, so since Mary Jane was said to have been "ginger haired" or a redhead I don't get why Lysette colored her hair to near black to play the role. But whatever, she nailed the Irish accent. Some have criticized it- "MJK would have had a mixed accent from her Irish and Welsh upbringing," etc. Let's not be nit-picky. Lysette did a fine job. And though her murder scene is mostly fictionalized and completely ignores the eyewitness accounts, the one tidbit of real tirvia they throw in packs an emotional punch, that being that Mary Jane was heard singing. Lysette singing "Sweeeeet Violets" to herself as the Ripper approaches her door makes me shudder every time I watch it.

Things wrong with the movie- The actor Richard Mansfield was never a main suspect as he is portrayed. The actor playing the psychic Mr. Lees looked absolutely nothing like the real Lees and is too young, and his whole involvement with the "Royal Conspiracy" theory and indeed that whole theory itself was absolutely not on the radar during the period of the Ripper crimes but only came out years later. The portrayal of George Lusk was completely and utterly fictionalized, turning him from a respectable building contractor and concerned citizen into a rabble rousing, torch waving anarchist. And why, oh why, do portrayals of Abberline on film always see the need to turn him into a struggling alcoholic or drug addict? It is simply not true. Neither is the fact that he was a married man ever portrayed, or that he and Godley were not direct partners who were always in each others' company.

Well, basically I think that the 1988 centennial miniseries "Jack the Ripper" is a really good movie for anyone who knows nothing of the real case, well acted, well directed, etc. But for all of us afficinanados, it is a maddening mixture of inaccuracies and very endearing emotional high-fives.

Yes, it is wonderful as a movie, but accuracy is crap.

[D.Meakin]

And of course we cant forget that Lysette Anthony is one hell of a fox

[Sam Flynn]

I wonder if anyone will ever attempt an ambitiously authentic documentary-style recreation of the Ripper events?

One that got very close was the "Barlow and Watt" television series of 1973. In the flashbacks, at least, the writers and production team did an excellent job of portraying the personalities, places and events of 1888. It was very well acted throughout.

I wrote to the BBC a while back, asking whether they might consider re-releasing the series on DVD, but got no reply.