Two Classic Shows, Two Unusual Takes on Jack the Ripper

Numerous TV series and films have offered imaginative twists on the mysterious murderer that terrorized the Whitechapel district of London in the late 1880s. Two of my favorite big screen versions are the time travel fantasy Time After Time (1979), which pits H.G. Wells against the Ripper and A Study in Terror (1965), which has Sherlock Holmes facing off against Jack (a premise borrowed by the later Murder By Decree). Two of the most intriguing small-screen Ripper tales appeared as episodes of Thriller and the original Star Trek. Interestingly, Robert Bloch--best known for writing the novel that became Psycho--had a hand in both TV series.

John Williams in Thriller.

The Thriller episode "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" starred John Williams (a Hitchcock semi-regular) as an expert engaged by the Washington, D.C. police to help apprehend a modern day Ripper-like murderer. As the gruesome killings mount, a fantastic theory emerges: Is the murderer actually Jack the Ripper himself, who has used black magic rituals to defy ageing? It’s a clever premise and the big twist at the end works pretty well (even though you’ll guess it). Although Bloch wrote several episodes of Thriller, this teleplay was written was Barré Lyndon and based on a Bloch short story. Published in 1947, the story “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” originally appeared in Weird Tales. It was the first of several literary works in which Robert Bloch incorporated Jack the Ripper.

This episode also features several Hitchcockian connections. First, it was directed by Ray Milland, who played the killer in Alfred Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder. The police inspector in that film? That would be John Williams. Decades earlier, Hitchcock also tackled Jack the Ripper with his 1927 silent film The Lodger, which was adapted from a short story and play by Marie Belloc Lowndes. And, for one final connection, the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode “The Hands of Mr. Ottermole” boasts some Ripper overtones with its plot about a strangler running amok in a very foggy London.

John Fiedler in Star Trek.

Star Trek seems like an unlikely destination for Jack the Ripper, which is precisely what makes “Wolf in the Fold” a compelling season two episode. While on shore leave on the planet Argelius II, a bewildered Scotty is  found—bloody knife in hand—standing over the corpse of a nightclub dancer. He has no recollection of what happened, but the evidence is damning and chief administrator Hengist (John Fiedler) seems convinced that Scotty is guilty.

For many years, I listed this as one of my favorite Star Trek episodes. I viewed it recently, though, and while still good, it hasn’t aged as well as others. Still, Fiedler is very good (he’s perhaps best remembered as Piglet in Disney Winnie the Pooh movies and TV shows). This time around, Bloch wrote an original teleplay and borrowed the central premise of “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper.” There are some nice touches, too, such as the foggy streets on Argelius substituting for London and Kirk’s use of the ship’s computer in revealing the murderer’s identity.

Television continues to sporadically visit the Jack the Ripper murders, with season one of the 2009-2013 British TV series Whitechapel focusing on a copycat  killer.

Classic TV Comic Book Tie-ins

Merchandise tie-ins and other licensing deals have been an essential marketing tool for decades. For movies, it dates back at least to Walt Disney, who made a licensing deal with a Switzerland company for Mickey and Minnie Mouse handkerchiefs in the late 1920s. Another example is William Boyd’s Hopalong Cassidy films, which began in the 1930s and led to dozens of tie-in products such as kids’ lunch boxes.

Television made a huge splash in the merchandising game in the 1950s with Superman, The Lone Ranger, and Fess Parker as Davy Crockett on the Disneyland TV series. Not surprisingly, savvy television producers were quick to partner with comic book publishers. Dell Comics and later Gold Key Comics led the way with tie-ins of popular shows. Many of them were based on youth-oriented TV series (e.g., Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea), but there were also comic book tie-ins with adult fare like Dr. Kildare, Mission: Impossible, and Burke’s Law.

In fact, a recent Café post on Burke’s Law inspired my sister to look for some of the classic TV comic books she bought as a youth. I had a blast looking at these covers and wanted to share them with Café readers.

You can enlarge any of the covers by clicking on them. Note the German officer pictured next to Chris George in The Rat Patrol cover is Hans Gudegast. He later changed his name to Eric Braeden and gained fame as Victor Newman on The Young and the Restless.

Boris Karloff Hosts a Thriller

In his 1981 history of horror fiction Danse Macabre, Stephen King dubs Thriller "probably the best horror series ever put on TV." It's still hard to argue with King's assessment. While this 1960-62 anthology series was inconsistent, it boasted some of the most chilling content ever broadcast on television. Ironically, that--combined with its one-hour length and short run--may explain why it never achieved lasting popularity along the lines of The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Simply put, episodes like the classic "Pigeons from Hell" (which featured a "zuvembie" and a hatchet murder) aren't everyone's cup of tea.

Don't let Miss DeVore (Patricia Barry)
remove her wig!

Thriller was created by Hubbell Robinson, a television pioneer who served as executive producer of CBS's prestigious anthology series Playhouse 90. According to the book Fantastic Television, Robinson sold Thriller to NBC without a pilot and based on a vague description. From the beginning, Robinson and his producers disagreed about the direction of the series. Unlike The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller lacked a strong vision and its initial ratings were soft. Fantastic Television includes this enlightening Robinson assessment: "The show simply did not have time to find its identity."

Veteran producers Maxwell Shane and William Frye were brought in to salvage the show. At the same time, the series' scope was narrowed to suspenseful crime stories (produced by Shane) and horror tales (Frye). Although Thriller fared better with critics and viewers, it was still a show with a split personality. One never knew what to expect on a given week: an episode about a botched kidnapping scheme or a scary yarn about a wig that turns its wearer into a vengeful killer.

Henry Daniell in "Well of Doom."

In retrospect, the show's reputation rests almost exclusively on the horror episodes--many of which are still hailed as genre classics. The aforementioned "Pigeons from Hell," adapted from a Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian) story, is a contemporary Gothic tale about two brothers who encounter a zombie-like, murderous creature in a decayed Southern mansion. In "The Cheaters," a pair of unusual glasses reveals different things to its various owners--but the result is always bad for everyone involved. The title hairpiece in a "A Wig for Miss DeVore" was once worn by a vengeful witch burned at the stake. It restores youth to a washed-up actress--who unfortunately transforms into a nasty-looking killer whenever the wig is removed. And, in a personal favorite, the densely-atmospheric Well of Doom, a man and his fiancee are imprisoned in a dungeon by mysterious strangers that may possess supernatural powers. The stellar cast features Henry Daniell (looking like Lon Chaney in London After Midnight) and Richard Kiel (Jaws in two Bond films) as the villains.

John Williams in "Yours Truly,
Jack the Ripper."

While I agree that the crime episodes are not as engrossing overall, there are notable exceptions. Stand-up comic Mort Sahl gives a good dramatic performance as a none-too-bright joe who overhears a kidnapping plot in Man in the Middle. His unconventional solution: Kidnap the heiress first. In The Twisted Image, married businessman Leslie Nielsen becomes the target of an obsessed younger woman. And in another fave, "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper," John Williams (a Hitchcock semi-regular) portrays an expert engaged by the Washington, D.C. police to help apprehend a Ripper-like murderer. Or is the murderer actually Jack the Ripper himself, who has used black magic rituals to defy ageing? This episode was based on a short story by Robert Bloch, who also penned teleplays for Thriller (and wrote the source novel for Hitchcock's Psycho). Interestingly, Block revamped his Jack the Ripper short story a few years later as the Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold."

Boris Karloff served as host of Thriller. It was not his first TV series, that distinction belonging to the 1954-55 British program Colonel March of Scotland Yard. Karloff, whose career was fading in the 1950s, gained fame anew when his Universal monster films were released to television, starting in 1957. By 1960, his name was synonymous with horror and he brought instant recognition to Thriller. Alas, his introductions weren't always well-written and often add little to the show. They lack the dark humor of Hitch's introductions on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the poetic fate of Serling's Twilight Zone narratives.

Thriller composers Pete Rugolo and Jerry Goldsmith earned a well-deserved Emmy nomination in 1961 for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Music. Rugolo, who wrote the jazzy Thriller opening theme, is perhaps best remembered for his work on The Fugitive. Goldsmith, of course, went on to a long, highly successful career as a film composer. Morton Stevens, another Thriller composer, later wrote one of the famous of all TV series themes: Hawaii Five-O.

To learn more about Thriller, I recommend checking out the entertaining blog A Thriller a Day... and Alan Warren's book This Is a Thriller. You can watch Thriller on MeTV; the complete series is also available in a boxed set from Image Entertainment.


This post is of part of The Summer of MeTV Classic TV Blogathon, hosted by the Classic TV Blog Association. Click here to view all the other great blogathon entries.