“This poor woman wasn’t murdered, she was plundered”. This two-part Euston Films drama sees Michael Caine pick up the role of Scotland Yard’s finest Insp. Abberline as he has to investigate the ritual slaughtering of some unfortunate women on the streets of Victorian East London. He’s a penchant for the bottle, has this policeman, but luckily he has stalwart Sgt. Godley (Lewis Collins) to help keep him on the straight and narrow as they have to juggle the internal politics from his superiors with the rumour-mongering press who are determined to stoke up resentment against not just the constabulary but possibly even the Great British (ok, so yes it’s always, lazily, referred to as the English) state. He also has the help of his former girlfriend “Emma” (Jane Seymour) who is an artist working for a newspaper hack “Bates” (Jonathan Moore) and who just happens to be friendly with thespian suspect Mansfield (Armand Assante) who has been firmly put in the frame by eccentric psychic medium Lees (Ken Bones). Now it happens that this latter gent is an advisor to none other than the Queen herself, and so that also sees our dynamic sleuthing duo having to consult with her personal physician Sir William Gull (Ray McAnally) who has, himself, some fairly groundbreaking views on madness, schizophrenia and mental illness. Information overload for Abberline and Godley, and with the corpses and the pressure mounting - well it’s a race against the clock before he finds himself sacked! It’s quite similar in storyline to “Murder by Decree” (1979) - only without the “Sherlock Holmes” character doing the detective work this time, and this production looks great. Caine is on great, curmudgeonly and mischievous form and he works well with Collins as their search for the truth takes them deep into the seamy side of a smog-bound city where the sound of hooves on the cobbles struck fear into the girls of the night. Bones hams up splendidly as the over-the top mystic, Moore is suitably odious as the nasty little fake-news pedlar and both McAnally and Michael Gothard as the revolutionary “Lusk” deliver well from amongst a solid cast of supporting actors that complement well. There’s not so much to say about the blandness of Seymour or Assante, who are rather more limited here, but the pithy writing and the combination of manoeuvring from high places with rolled-up trouser leg, dodgy handshakes and penny-a-go prostitutes helps to create quite a compelling mystery for us all to solve.
