brilliant actors, brilliant editing

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Despite being made in 1953, it has the look and feel of a movie made in 1933! In addition, this movie set in London was clearly made on the back-lot of a studio in America. As if to hammer home the London 'look and feel' of the movie, even the suspenseful background music is a slow drawn out melody of Big Ben sounding off.What really makes it unwatchable (to English viewers) is the comic treasury of terrible British accents. No voice coaching here... just bizarre guesswork by the actors.Also (in my opinion) the giant Jack Palance is horribly miscast as a shy and socially awkward suspect in this Jack The Ripper yarn. He doesn't wield any kind of affinity with the role of the suspect and spends most of the time standing about the scenery looking lost or telling whoever will listen that he's a misunderstood, lonely outcast.Incredibly, this movie, about one of the world's most notorious killers, has been padded out with a few flamboyant song and dance routines! Wildly inappropriate and definitely NOT what you'd find anywhere in London in the late 1800s! It just looks and sounds silly.Other versions of this film are a lot more credible than this offering which seems to have been thrown together simply because Palance was bored and on contract and the studios were not being used for anything else.

MAN IN THE ATTIC is a version of the famous Hitchcock silent film, THE LODGER. A youthful-looking (and nearly unrecognisable from later on in his career) Jack Palance plays a mysterious researcher who takes boardings in a family home at the same time as the Jack the Ripper murders. Before long they begin to suspect that he might well be the Ripper himself...This is one of those cosy murder mysteries shot on a studio backlot in Los Angeles masquerading as East End London in the late 19th century. It's not particularly realistic, but there's some fun to be had from listening to the actors putting on English accents (Palance included) and enough fog-enshrouded streets to make this an atmospheric little production. The dialogue tends towards the insipid, although the main actors put in some not-bad character work.Unfortunately MAN IN THE ATTIC is also something of a potboiler, with a slow pacing (even for the era). All of the murders are kept off-screen and things only get genuinely exciting during the last ten minutes. Still, as a period-era police procedural this isn't bad at all; throw in Robert Ryan and you'd have yourself a film noir. The full-blooded 1959 version of JACK THE RIPPER is a much better interpretation of the story.

Jack Palance is perfectly creepy and tormented in this highly atmospheric remake of THE LODGER. It certainly is a tour-de-force for him, no other way to describe it. I think his Ripper is much sexier than Laird Cregar's in THE LODGER. It is a lot easier to imagine (to "see") the repeated violent sex acts that are no doubt occurring just off-camera. Palance makes it seems like frustration getting its high-voltage release. Cregar, as fine an actor as he was, does not even come close to suggesting that. As a result, I think Palance's version is much more tortured and ultimately more sympathetic. I also like Frances Bavier, pre-Mayberry, who makes the woman of the house very no- nonsense, yet likable. She guides some of our impressions of the man staying in her home. When she trusts him, we trust him-- when she grows suspicious, so do we. So in some ways the story is told through her perspective. And the interiors are absolutely gorgeous-- Fox outdid itself with the set design in this 50s remake.

I didn't have high hopes for this one. I'm not much of a Jack Palance fan but in this, his film personality works to his advantage.Murders are gripping the city of Whitechapel and by coincidence, a mysterious Lodger comes to let a room. He carries a black bag and wears a Ulster. The landlady thinks him odd but she rents him 2 floors. The 2nd for his sleeping and the Attic...for his "experiments". He meets the landlady's daughter and he's smitten but he has a problem with her, he doesn't care too much for actresses. Not all, but most of the Ripper murders are, or were, actresses. Could he be the one? I was thoroughly surprised at how much they let the suspense go on until the end. The keep you guessing until it's over. Jack Palance finally has a role he can really fit in. He does a real good job of playing the "could" be Ripper. The real tragedy of the film is Constance Smith. Reading about her life after she left film (not long after this), is sad. I think so because she has some real screen presence. She is the light of this film. I mean she is just perfect as the daughter and she has some real personality. It's a shame she didn't accomplish more than she did. "Aunt Bee" has a role also and she's quite good as the nosy landlady.Just give this one a try and see I'm right. You may think you've seen all the Jack the Ripper films but try this and and you'll get a really nice surprise. Really well done. Right up until the end you'll be asking yourself..."Is Jack Palance the Ripper?...or isn't he?"