Jack the Ripper

Tormented by visions of his prostitute mother, a respectable London doctor (Klaus Kinski) leads a double life, running a clinic for the poor by day and butchering loose women by night.

The police, in the shape of Inspector Selby (Andreas Mannkopff), seem powerless to catch the killer, prompting Selby's girlfriend, ballerina Cynthia (Josephine Chaplin) to take the desperate measure of presenting herself as bait…

Jesus Franco's 1976 take on the Jack the Ripper legend should be required viewing for all those who consider the Spanish auteur to be a talentless, zoom-happy hack.

The director hardly uses the device here, a seemingly larger budget and longer shooting schedule than usual affording him the opportunity to showcase a carefully controlled mise-en-scene with careful camera set-ups combining with impressive production designs and lighting effects to create a solid atmosphere throughout.

To dismiss this representation of Victorian London as unrealistic or take the director to task for playing fast and loose with the facts of the Ripper case are, I think, to miss the point.

As with the Edgar Wallace films, Franco is here concerned more with an idea of London than a reality. Streets are invariably dark and foggy and a key locales – Big Ben, Soho, the Thames – are deployed without reference to real geography.

With the Ripper, meanwhile, the very absence of hard facts and the failure of the authorities to bring forward any suspect for trial has always allowed film-makers to exercise their imaginations. Franco's (ab)uses are no worse or better than those of, say, Leni's Waxworks, Wedekind/Pabst's Pandora's Box or Belloc-Lowdes/Hitchcock's The Lodger from the silent era or Hill's A Study in Terror in more recent times.

For Franco, this freedom means presenting the Ripper as another incarnation of the Dr Orlof character first introduced in The Awful Doctor Orlof (1962). Indeed, a scene-by-scene comparison of the two films shows that one could commutate Orlof for the Ripper, the essential plot points being identical.

While Kinski probably regarded the film as just another "piece of shit" unworthy of his talents he doesn't let any such attitude negatively impact on his performance. Rather, those hints of distaste and contempt that do come through add immeasurably to his portrayal of the divided character.

Unusually, Franco does not appear on screen himself (a bumbling policeman would have been the obvious place) though his muse/collaborator Lina Romay has a small role as a singer/prostitute victim of the Ripper.

Perhaps the film's only weaknesses, then, are some slightly stilted dialogue – all "prithee" and "milord" – and variable dubbing. Really, however, these are the things that pretty much come with the territory and which enthusiasts should be able to overlook.

VIP's region free NTSC DVD of Jack the Ripper is released under the rubric of "The Official Jesus Franco Collection", though with the director having had so many producers/backers over the years it's hard to say how any one collection, being able to encompass only a single period of his work, could really be said to be utterly definitive.

This said, the DVD is a thoroughly impressive affair and, if all the other Irwin Dietrich period releases in the collection are of a similar calibre, one could have no hesitation in recommending them to the Francophile.

Visual quality on the DVD is impressive. The film is presented in its original 1.85:1 widescreen ratio, from a restored print transferred under the supervision of the original director of photography Peter Baumgartner. In other words, it probably looks as good as it ever did. The colours come through vibrantly, the blacks are solid (though perhaps at times a touch over-dominant) and the transfer copes well with the preponderance of fog and other stimmung effects.

Audio is also satisfactory, both dialogue and Walter Baumgartner's score coming through loud and clear without distortion or hiss.

The extras are impressive.

First up is a deleted scene, lasting all of six seconds and showing an extended version of Romay's mutilation. Slight, but worth having for completeness sake.

This is followed by a 22 minute documentary, in German with English subtitles, on Jesus Franco's films for Dietrich, the producer being interviewed on camera. He explains how he first came to work with Franco when the director came looking for backing for Barb Wire Dolls. Their relationship almost ended before it had begun when Franco presented the finished product, which Dietrich found to be technically challenged. On reflection, however, he came to realise what Franco was aiming at and, indeed, now credits the director with presenting something akin to a Dogma film avant la lettre. It was to be the beginning of a 15 film association, with Jack the Ripper the next product.

Dietrich explains how Franco came to him with the project ready to go and the locations (Zurich rather than London) already scouted – all that was needed was the money – and how, contrary to the stereotype, Kinski was easy to work with. Indeed, the biggest difficulties (as with many of Franco's films) came with the censors, who objected not only to certain scenes but also to the advertising materials that had been prepared.

Otherwise, the documentary serves to indicate that everything one might have heard about Franco is true: He is happiest when in front of a camera, has an encyclopedic knowledge of the cinema, and, away from the camera, is a true bon vivant and gourmand.

Next up is a 17 minute documentary on the film's restoration, showcasing the care and attention that has gone into producing this definitive DVD.

A feature length commentary with Dietrich, again in German with English subtitles, necessarily goes over much of the same ground as the two documentaries, but also expands on them, as the director picks out people and places from the production, recalls anecdotes and gives background on the real ripper.

With the package rounded off by a stills gallery; trailers for the film and Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun; ; biographies of Kinski, Franco and Dietrich, the only thing that one can think of which is absent from the DVD is a more direct input from Franco himself. Maybe he and Dietrich had a falling out – who knows?

Jack the Ripper on film