Murder by Decree

Murder by Decree is, in one fell swoop, both the best film I've seen about Jack the Ripper, and the best Sherlock Holmes film. Holmes has been portrayed in dozens of films, and I haven't seen them all, but I think this one does the best job of bringing the famous character to life in a realistic manner.

Directed by Bob Clark, who had an interesting career (he has both Porky's and A Christmas Story on his resume), the film tackles a tantalizing what if--what if Sherlock Holmes investigated the Ripper murders? Of course, Arthur Conan Doyle didn't touch that, but Murder by Decree does, and quite well, I think.

It is 1888. The third Whitechapel murder has just taken place, and then it is discovered that a fourth murder has taken place the same night. Holmes (Christopher Plummer) and Watson (James Mason) are at the opera. The great detective has not been approached by Scotland Yard, but upon returning home they are greeted by a citizen's committee of businessmen in Whitechapel who are concerned about a loss of trade. They ask Holmes to take the case.

The angle is one that is the sexiest to Ripper fiction--that the killings were somehow linked to the royal family, in this case the Duke of Clarence, son of the Prince of Wales and grandson of Queen Victoria. I won't go into details, lest I ruin the fun, but even if it isn't true it doesn't seem too outlandish, and sticks to the details of the case as it actually happened.

What makes the film the best Sherlock Holmes movie I've seen is the relationship between Plummer and Mason. Plummer plays Holmes with some of his familiar tropes--the pipe, the deerstalker, the violin. But we don't get the the usual scenes of his amazing power of deduction. Instead, he is a fun-loving, quick-witted fellow. Watson, while erroneously presented as much older than Holmes, is a stuffy but agreeable fellow, and Holmes takes delight in ruffling his feathers. A great scene has Watson trying to corral the last pea on his dinner plate, and Holmes takes a fork and smushes it. "You squashed my pea," Watson says, indignantly.

The film also introduces pathos in the person of Genevieve Bujold (oh, she was so pretty) as a woman locked up in an asylum who provides the keys to the mystery. Holmes, usually played as a cold machine of a man, sympathizes with her, and even sheds a few tears for her, which is unusual for him.

This film looks a bit dated. The sets look like sets, and it has a TV-movie feel to it, but it's great fun for both Holmes aficionados and ripperologists.