1st watched 6/26/2014 -- 5 out of 10(Dir-Hugo Fregonese): Interesting but calculated mystery revolving around the British "Jack the Ripper" legend. This movie version of the story involves a mysterious pathologist played by a young Jack Palance who is setup early on as a possible suspect in the ripper's murders. This is not necessarily done thru the screenplay but rather by the way the movie is directed. From the first scene, the Ripper is the focus as two policeman escort home a drunk older lady only to see her murdered. Palance's character then arrives on the scene looking for a room with an attic to perform his experiments -- supposedly. Palance has the ability to be charming yet sometimes scary and menacing and shows his screen presence in this early film. Palance is not the problem with this movie -- the problem is that it sets his character up too early and rides him as a mysterious unknown with Frances Baviar(from Andy Griffith's TV show) as the landlord exclaiming her belief in his guilt early on. It's fun to see Aunt Bee before she became this TV show character, but other than this oddity the movie doesn't provide much mystery or allure. The cast is fine and there isn't any over-acting it's just not a good screenplay. I guess if you want to see these TV stars in earlier roles it's not a wasted viewing but other than that it doesn't offer much. It's kind of alarming that a man that actually did a lot of real killing to women in England has gotten so much attention and movie credo's but I guess that's just the way of our world....the movie doesn't help us understand anything different about this character and doesn't make for a worthwhile experience unfortunately.
Review of Man in the Attic
