By JOHNNY RESTALL

The concept of one of the world’s most influential fictional detectives investigating the Victorian era’s most infamous unidentified real murderer seems almost too perfect. Both Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper inhabit a dark and sinister London in the popular imagination, full of cobbled streets and pea-soup smog, with danger lurking just outside the glow of every gas lamp. The two were also virtual contemporaries: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Holmes tale, A Study In Scarlet, was published in November 1887, while the Ripper’s atrocious spree occurred from August to November the following year.

Yet while Conan Doyle’s sleuth faced everything from poison darts to wife-murdering barons and enemy spies over the course of four novels and fifty-six short stories, the author never pitted him against the Ripper, perhaps feeling that doing so crossed boundaries of decency between fiction and reality. It was not until long after the writer’s death that this fascinating if tasteless pairing was brought to fruition, resulting in two sharply contrasting films: A Study in Terror (1965) and Murder by Decree (1979).

Despite its distinctly non-canonical story, A Study in Terror was actually given the blessing of the late Conan Doyle’s estate, who co-produced the effort under the company name of Sir Nigel Films. The screenplay by Derek and Donald Ford nods towards Holmes’ classic cases via its title, as well as containing faint echoes of The Priory School and The Veiled Lodger within its plot. However, its tone is closer to that of a Victorian penny dreadful than to The Strand magazine, the respected original publisher of much of Conan Doyle’s detective fiction. There’s an undeniable splash of Hammer Horror to proceedings, though it’s worth noting that on the occasions where Hammer themselves tackled the Whitechapel murders they took a more imaginative and surprising approach, particularly in Peter Sasdy’s Hands of the Ripper (1971).

Directed by James Hill, who is perhaps most remembered today for the following year’s family-friendly Born Free, A Study in Terror revels in brisk exploitation. Before the opening credits roll, a cheerful prostitute is knifed through the throat and her body discovered by a shrill cockney caricature, establishing an atmosphere somewhere between grand guignol and pantomime. The violence is lurid but oddly flippant, with barely a passing resemblance to the unbearable savagery of the real murders. The vibrant photography of Desmond Dickinson gives the set-piece killings a style that is both striking and sleazy. The way that the camera takes the Ripper’s eye-view for the murder of Mary Kelly (Edina Ronay) points the way towards a hundred 1980s slashers, while the swirling colours of the demise of Polly Nichols (Christiane Maybach) come close to the visual excesses of Mario Bava’s contemporary Blood and Black Lace (although Bava’s 1964 Italian film was not released in the UK until 1966, making it unlikely as a direct influence). There is little effort to establish any sympathy for the victims, who are portrayed as little more than a succession of glamourous dolls with chirpy East-End accents.

In contrast, Murder by Decree emphasises the poverty and squalor of the lives of London’s most unfortunate residents, declining any attempt to exploitatively sexualise the Ripper’s desperate prey. John Hopkins’ script makes it clear that the slaughtered women are as much victims of their viciously unequal society as they are of the killer (a notion carried through to the final reveal of the murderer’s identity and motives, which will be discussed in due course).

As in director Bob Clark’s earlier horror classic Black Christmas (1974), the violence in Murder by Decree is deeply disturbing without being overly explicit. It is up close and personal, a grim slow-motion ballet of tumbling bodies whose proximity to the camera creates a hideous intimacy with the viewer. The way the Ripper’s coach emerges from the fog is almost surreal, captured by Reginald H. Morris’ diffused, queasy cinematography and accompanied by muffled and slurred sound, as though the image were crawling out from the depths of a nightmare. The camera prowls the dark streets of Whitechapel through a claustrophobic fisheye lens, rendering the area as a narrow impoverished purgatory, in stark contrast to the wider and brighter shots of the city’s wealthier environs. The extensive use of sets rather than real locations adds a further uncanny layer to the film, though it also results in a slightly stiff, artificial staginess that occasionally hinders the action.

The differing priorities of the two films are embedded in their respective portrayals of Holmes and Doctor Watson. John Neville takes the role of the great detective for A Study in Terror with his lean, angular features proving a fine physical fit for the part. His take on the character recalls the supercilious sharpness of Basil Rathbone’s classic performances for 20^th Century Fox and Universal, while his self-amused manner points towards Ian Richardson’s later interpretation for producer Sy Weintraub’s 1983 TV movies. Neville’s Holmes is dismissive of the victims, haughtily describing one as “not a respectable woman,” and his refusal to openly assist the government in catching the killer seems to come more from a desire to snub his brother Mycroft (Robert Morley) than from any serious political conviction. He’s vain and almost comically indiscreet, happy to use people as bait and entirely uninterested in any of the wider issues surrounding the case. While his characterisation is not wholly inaccurate, it fails to illuminate any of the depth or complexities of Conan Doyle’s creation or to add anything new to the superficial popular image.

Neville’s Watson is provided by Donald Houston. He adopts the bluff and blundering style of Nigel Bruce’s earlier take on the character alongside Rathbone, essentially serving as comic relief. Houston sits on Holmes’ pipe, gasps at far-fetched deductions, expresses pompous indignation without any understanding, and generally fails to be of any practical assistance. As with Rathbone and Bruce’s partnership, it is hard to understand why the two characters would choose to be together, unless Holmes simply required a bumbling oaf to make himself look even cleverer. It’s a far cry from the capable, thoughtful Watson of the original stories, who often acted as Holmes’ more humane counterpoint.

Conversely, Murder by Decree creates genuine warmth between Holmes and Watson, standing alongside the Jeremy Brett and David Burke / Edward Hardwicke Granada TV productions as one of the few believable depictions of an actual friendship between the two. While James Mason may arguably be a little old for the role of Watson, he brings dignity, wit, and intelligence to the part, verbally teasing Holmes as an equal in their first scene, and showing kindness, concern, and loyalty throughout. While he is certainly more conservative and less intuitive than his friend, and is occasionally the butt of the film’s humour, he is never reduced to a fool.

When Christopher Plummer’s Holmes regains consciousness near the end of the film, his first action is to beseech the police to help Watson, who has also been injured during their showdown with the Ripper. This reflects tellingly not only on their strong relationship but also on Plummer’s uniquely human version of the character, boldly offering something beyond the cold, rational, invincible stereotype. His Holmes is aware of his intellectual superiority but rarely disengaged. He shows great affection for Watson, utilises charm and patience with the vulnerable, and unleashes withering sarcasm and fury against his foes. He is surprisingly fallible too, suffering injuries, failing to protect witnesses, and being covertly manipulated by both sides. When faced with the testimony of Annie Crook (Geneviève Bujold), he is even moved to tears, before exploding with rage at her captors.

Plummer’s depiction has inevitably been criticised by some as too emotional. However, Conan Doyle’s Holmes shows flashes of great feeling behind the steely façade in stories like The Final Problem and The Devil’s Foot and is profoundly fallible in tales such as The Five Orange Pips and The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax. Further, Plummer’s performance is arguably justified by the far-reaching conspiracy driving the film’s plot, and his eventual inability to see justice done. While Conan Doyle’s detective is frequently scornful of wealth and power, he essentially remains an eccentric but compliant part of his society, never seeking to overturn the established order despite his cynical regard for particular individuals. Here, Holmes uncovers “madmen wielding sceptres…justice howling at the moon.” It shakes him to his very core as a Victorian gentleman, forcing him to care about the wider social and political issues and to empathise with those ground beneath corruption’s heels.

This brings us to the key difference between the two films: the culprits they unmask as ‘their’ Ripper. A Study in Terror exposes Jack as Lord Edward Carfax (John Fraser), a wholly imaginary aristocrat avenging the wrongs done to his blackmailed brother. His actions are comfortably explained as being due to hereditary madness, with no accomplices or social comment beyond the implication that his spree was more misguided than monstrous, with no ‘real’ harm done. It ends with justice served (privately if not publicly): the murderer is consumed by flames alongside the blackmailers. Holmes and Watson remain entirely unchanged at the end, blithely celebrating another successfully completed adventure.

Murder by Decree however hurls us into a conspiracy involving the government, Masons, and the Royal household. While A Study in Terror merely uses social tensions as a decorative backdrop, Clark’s film embeds them as the key to the mystery from the very start. The first scene depicts the Prince of Wales being booed from the cheap seats at the opera; Holmes is sardonically amused, while Watson is outraged by the anti-establishment protest. By the end, however, Watson can find decency only in the lowest classes, praising Mary Kelly (Susan Clark) and Annie Crook for giving their lives to protect a child from the vengeful state. Meanwhile, an impassioned Holmes has furiously rebuked the head of Scotland Yard (Anthony Quayle) and the prime minister (John Gielgud), before being forced into silence. The rich and the powerful have literally preyed on the poor: Prince Albert Victor by his seduction and abandonment of Crook, the government through their secrecy and insecurity, and royal servant William Slade (Peter Jonfield) and respected surgeon Sir Thomas Spivey (Roy Lansford) by their appalling rampage. Their actions have in turn been ruthlessly exploited by the political radicals who wish to overthrow them, leaving the downtrodden masses caught in the middle with no one to save them and no hope of even posthumous justice.

Although Murder by Decree contains faint references to Conan Doyle classics such as Silver Blaze and The Second Stain, its overall premise comes from Stephen Knight’s historical speculation Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution (1976). Knight’s book also influenced Eddie Campbell and Alan Moore’s extraordinary graphic novel From Hell (1989-98) and its 2001 cinema adaptation, as well as the 1988 Thames / CBS miniseries Jack the Ripper. However, while Knight’s theories have achieved popular currency, they have been largely discredited by historians. This means that although Clark’s film presents a more historically-engaged and straight-faced conclusion, it is just as fictionalised as the gleefully ghoulish findings of A Study in Terror.

Although the two films represent the only full cinematic features pitting Holmes against the Ripper, the idea has persisted elsewhere. Several literary efforts tackle the concept, including The Last Sherlock Holmes Story by Michael Dibdin (1978) and Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr John H Watson by Lyndsay Kaye (2009), and it has even resulted in a 2009 computer game. Despite their respective flaws, A Study in Terror and Murder by Decree remain fascinating in their contradictions and conclusions, both as reflections of the real case in popular culture and as contributions to the world of Sherlock Holmes.