Man in the Attic

Hugo Fregonese’s Man in the Attic is a fairly average entry in the canon of Jack the Ripper films — for example, it lacks the psychological and cosmic heft of John Brahm’s 1944 The Lodger, of which it’s a sort of remake — but it offers strong suspense, spectacular atmosphere, and a noteworthy performance by Jack Palance as the Ripper. Based on Marie Belloc Lowndes’ novelization of the legendary killings, the film bathes the studio-created Whitechapel area of London in menacing fog and mist sliced by the light from gas lamps and constables’ flashlights as Scotland Yard Inspector Paul Warwick (Byron Palmer) hunts down the Victorian slasher. The Ripper’s landlords, William (Rhys Williams) and Helen Harley (Frances Bavier), provide occasional comic relief while growing increasingly suspicious of their “man in the attic,” who becomes obsessed with their visiting niece, Lily Bonner (Constance Smith), a sexy singer at the local theater (“Your beauty is evil; it must be cut away”). Given studio censorship, the film only provides subtle glimpses of Slade’s psychosexual conflicts, but Palance, with his long sideburns, black medical bag, and spooky facial features, deftly exposes the character’s mental torment, culminating in an ending that lacks clear resolution, perfectly suited to a quasi-historical figure like Jack the Ripper whose existence is still debated to this day. The real star, however, is Tover’s cinematography and Fuller’s and Wheeler’s art direction, which together create a mood and a moment teeming with dangerous beauty in all directions.