Someone has been murdering prostitutes in London’s Whitechapel district. Police haven't been unable to make any headway in the investigation. A contingent, claiming to be shop owners from the area, approach Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Plummer) asking him to help find the criminal. Holmes is a private detective in 1888 London who, along with his friend Dr. Watson (James Mason), has been called upon from time to time to solve some complicated cases. So far, four women have been murdered. Each murder is more violent than the last.
In charge of the police investigation is Inspector Foxborough (David Hemmings). In charge of Foxborough is Commissioner Sir Charles Warren (Anthony Quayle), the head of Scotland Yard. Sir Charles isn’t happy that Holmes has found his way into the case.
Sherlock gets a tip telling him to talk to a medium named Robert Lees (Donald Sutherland). Lees relates his visions of the killer and describes in detail the murder of one of the victims, Annie Chapman. He then tells Sherlock about an encounter he had in the street with a man he believes was the killer.
Other clues point to the Masons being involved. Holmes then learns about a woman, Annie Crook (Genevieve Bujold), who is locked in a mental institution, and who has a secret that could bust wide open a conspiracy that may reach to the highest levels of government, and a radical element that is aiming for the fall of that same British government.
“Murder by Decree” was released in 1979 and was directed by Bob Clark. It is a British and Canadian mystery thriller.
This is a familiar plot and one that has been put forward by others as a possible explanation of the real-life Jack the Ripper murders. The plot of the film is loosely based on the book “The Ripper File” by Elwyn Jones. The movie combines real life events with the fictional detective and his sidekick.
This is the second Jack the Ripper VS Sherlock Holmes movie. The first was “A Study in Terror” in 1965. Frank Finlay, who plays Inspector Lestrade, also played the police detective in that 1965 Holmes/Ripper movie. Anthony Quayle was also in “A Study in Terror” but in a different role.
Christopher Plummer previously played Sherlock Holmes in a television episode of The Sunday Drama called Silver Blaze (1977).
Inspector Lestrade plays little part in the movie and seems to only be there to tie the story closer to the Holmes character.
The film is just a tad long but still interesting even though the plot was fairly complicated. There were a lot of possible suspects and reasons for the killings. All of the various threads add screen time to the movie. It takes about eighteen minutes to wrap everything up at the end. Even so, it’s actually one of the better Sherlock Holmes movies.