Jack the Ripper – 1973 TV, various

by Allan Fish

(UK 1973 300m) not on DVD

For all the Mrs Fiddymonts in the world

p  Paul Bonner, Leonard Lewis  d  David Wickes, Gilchrist Calder, Leonard Lewis  w  Elwyn Johns, John Lloyd

Stratford Johns (Det.Chief.Supt.Barlow), Frank Windsor (Det.Chief.Supt.Watt), Gordon Christie (Abberline), Hilary Sesta (Catherine Eddowes), Basil Henson (Charles Warren),

Just type ‘Jack the Ripper’ into Youtube’s search engine and stare into the abyss; dozens of videos of all kinds, from Screaming Lord Sutch to video phone recordings of Ripper walks to video game menus, plus a host of documentaries on various suspects.  None run longer than an hour and a half, and all look into the matter in such cursory detail as to make one wonder why no-one has had the idea to look into the events properly.  The main reason, naturally, is that the myth is always preferable to the facts, and any documentaries shown on TV on the subject these days assume the attention span of the viewer to equate to that of a gnat, and are often about new suspects where the evidence has been selected to fit the suspect rather than the traditional reverse of this process. 

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