A Study in Terror is set during Victorian times in 1888 to be precise & starts late on night in the poverty ridden London district of Whitechappell where a serial killer known as Jack the Ripper is at large, prostitute Polly Nichols (Christiane Maybach) is the second to dies from his blade & soon after another prostitute named Annie Chapman (Barbara Windsor) falls victim to the Ripper. The worlds greatest detective Sherlck Holmes (John Neville) & his trusty sidekick Dr. Watson (Donald Houston) are on the case after a set of surgical scalpels are mysteriously sent to Holmes in the post, as Holmes investigates the Ripper case the likes of blackmail, dark family secrets, lies & a whole host of other undesirable elements surface for Holmes to shift through & get to the horrible truth...
This British production was directed by James Hill & is a surprisingly decent murder mystery. The script by Derek & Donald Ford uses the intriguing premise of having the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes tackle the still unsolved real-life case of Jack the Ripper, it's a neat idea & it works very well thanks to a good script that manages to juggle the mystery & horror elements effectively & to it's credit there's more going on in A Study in Terror than just the Ripper murders for Holmes to get to the bottom of. There are a few suspects & each one is given just about enough motive to put them in the frame for the murders yet there isn't one huge stand out candidate who are obvious, adding to a pleasing amount of mystery is a fair amount of exploitation & action which I didn't expect from a film of this vintage. The character's are good & it keeps to the basic notion of each of it's main stars, Sherlock Holmes is the unflappable super smart detective who misses literally nothing & Jack the Ripper is portrayed as a doctor as he was suspected to be in reality. It moves along at a nice pace, it will probably keep you guessing for most of it's running time & it all comes together in satisfactory climax although it never explained how Holmes himself escapes the fire, does it?
Director Hill does a better job than expected with some very atmospheric scenes set in a Victorian fog enshrouded London. The period sets, costumes & props are excellent with with lots of attention to detail throughout. There are some nice moments here especially the long point-of-view murder of the fourth prostitute late on in the film. This was probably considered pretty strong back in 1965 & while not up there with the likes of todays horror films there's some decent gore here, there's a scene set in a slaughter house complete with lots of hanging, gutted pig carcasses, someone has a knife shoved through their neck, there's a slit throat & a cool scene when someone is stabbed in a water trough & the camera is based in the bottom so we can see clouds of blood discolour the water from underneath.
Technically A Study in Terror is great, we British know how to turn in a decent period effort & there's even an impressive fiery climax featuring a fight between Holmes & the Ripper in a burning pub. The acting is fine & I loved the cockney accents especially all the prostitutes who were a hoot, there's a good cast here including Barbara Windsor, Oscar winner Judi Dench, Robert Morley, Frank Finlay & Adrienne Corri.
A Study in Terror is a neat film that was much better than I was expecting, if your looking for an atmospheric murder mystery with some added exploitation then A Sudy in Terror might be what your after. Definitely worth a watch.
This British production was directed by James Hill & is a surprisingly decent murder mystery. The script by Derek & Donald Ford uses the intriguing premise of having the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes tackle the still unsolved real-life case of Jack the Ripper, it's a neat idea & it works very well thanks to a good script that manages to juggle the mystery & horror elements effectively & to it's credit there's more going on in A Study in Terror than just the Ripper murders for Holmes to get to the bottom of. There are a few suspects & each one is given just about enough motive to put them in the frame for the murders yet there isn't one huge stand out candidate who are obvious, adding to a pleasing amount of mystery is a fair amount of exploitation & action which I didn't expect from a film of this vintage. The character's are good & it keeps to the basic notion of each of it's main stars, Sherlock Holmes is the unflappable super smart detective who misses literally nothing & Jack the Ripper is portrayed as a doctor as he was suspected to be in reality. It moves along at a nice pace, it will probably keep you guessing for most of it's running time & it all comes together in satisfactory climax although it never explained how Holmes himself escapes the fire, does it?
Director Hill does a better job than expected with some very atmospheric scenes set in a Victorian fog enshrouded London. The period sets, costumes & props are excellent with with lots of attention to detail throughout. There are some nice moments here especially the long point-of-view murder of the fourth prostitute late on in the film. This was probably considered pretty strong back in 1965 & while not up there with the likes of todays horror films there's some decent gore here, there's a scene set in a slaughter house complete with lots of hanging, gutted pig carcasses, someone has a knife shoved through their neck, there's a slit throat & a cool scene when someone is stabbed in a water trough & the camera is based in the bottom so we can see clouds of blood discolour the water from underneath.
Technically A Study in Terror is great, we British know how to turn in a decent period effort & there's even an impressive fiery climax featuring a fight between Holmes & the Ripper in a burning pub. The acting is fine & I loved the cockney accents especially all the prostitutes who were a hoot, there's a good cast here including Barbara Windsor, Oscar winner Judi Dench, Robert Morley, Frank Finlay & Adrienne Corri.
A Study in Terror is a neat film that was much better than I was expecting, if your looking for an atmospheric murder mystery with some added exploitation then A Sudy in Terror might be what your after. Definitely worth a watch.