Seven Murders for Scotland Yard

Someone is jabbing the life out of hookers in London and Scotland Yard are up to finding out who is responsible. It seems that Jack the Ripper has come back from the dead, but the police actually suspect hard drinking, limping, fat tiny Spaniard Paul Naschy for the murders.

Paul plays Pedro, a retired trapeze artist with a bum leg whose hooker wife is murdered early on by our douchebag killer, who also frames Pedro, who can't seem to go anywhere without dead hookers turning up.

A certain inspector is out to catch the killer, and has some suave mate whose wife he might be in love with. It's all like EastEnders only with murders and translated through a Spanish eye. It doesn't have the style of an Italian giallo (hence the accusations of it being drab and flat) but it does have a good pace and plenty of sauce.

It also has plenty of cheeseball moments, from when a hooker has a speech about how all men are bastards or the various moments when members of the British public try and avoid the camera that has no doubt appeared undeclared right in front of them! This film also has a fairly high body count so I'm a bit unclear on how it can be boring. Cheap looking, yes, but entertaining throughout.

Also, I went to London a few days ago, all jazzed to see Piccadilly Circus the way it appears in this film, and they've replaced it with a giant TV screen! What a let down.

This had been shown on late-night Italian TV some years back and, later, I recall it being mentioned favorably online; hence, given its theme of an updated version of Jack The Ripper and the fact that it starred Euro-Cult icon Paul Naschy, I decided to check it out this time around. However, it turned out to be quite a mess: not so surprising when considering that the only other J.L. Madrid film I've watched was the similarly dispiriting THE HORRIBLE SEXY VAMPIRE (1970)!; as in that film, the women here are mainly on screen in order to disrobe and get butchered.

The plot provides three possible suspects of the serial killings: a crippled and bitter ex-trapeze artist (Naschy) whose wife is among the victims, a handsome schoolteacher of noble birth but who's actually impotent and, surprisingly, a police commissioner who just happens to be the latter's boyhood chum and is also secretly in love with his wife (Orchidea De Santis, whom I saw in the flesh and on screen – in Luciano Salce's equally obscure but infinitely superior political satire, COUP D'ETAT [1969] – at the 61st Venice Film Festival)!

The Swinging London locations are just about the only authentic element here: both the gore and the occasional action scene look extremely phony; another clear measure of the film's lack of budget is that Naschy's accident (which continues to haunt him) is hilariously depicted simply by having the actor throw himself in front of the camera and utter a couple of none-too-convincing groans!

A serial killer is on the loose in modern day London, committing a series of murders that echo the work of Jack the Ripper from the previous century. Scotland Yard is once again on the case and their no. 1 suspect is Peter Dockerman (Paul Naschy), a drunk former trapeze artist (!) whose wife was one of the earliest victims.

This Naschy vehicle is a real snoozer. A majority of the time is comprised of stuffy Brits talking up their theories over and over. This is the kind of movie where you will guess the killer 20 minutes in (a small cast and telling line of dialog helps out here) and then you wait the next hour as they try to mislead you. It also doesn't help that the TeleVista DVD appears to be a clothed version (although sharp-eyed viewers will note that a flashback by the killer features a quick snippet of nudity). The DVD is nice though in that it is widescreen. The crew did a few days of actual shooting in London as Naschy limps around various tourist spots. It is quite fun watch the polite Brits always duck out of the way real quick as the camera pans to them.

JACK THE MANGLER ( 1971 ) starring Paul Naschy aka SEVEN CORPSES ( MURDERS ) FOR Scotland YARD This is a very hard to see film, but is worth the hunt for fans of Naschy and also giallo knock offs. It's a decent thriller with a mysterious Jack the Ripper wanna be who kills each victim with a distinctive blade, each from a different country. One by one, prostitutes are turning up dead and missing various body parts, a set of eyes here, a heart there. One of the early victims is Naschy's whore for hire wife, and he becomes a suspect in the early investigations, despite the fact that a younger, athletic man is the type sought, and Naschy has a gimpy leg from a high wire accident that ended his circus career. The local criminal element has it in for him as well, the murders bring the cops down on them and it's hurting business. The mystery of who the killer is and why he's so eager to carve up the local tarts is decent giallo fodder and satisfied me. Orchidea de Santis provides some hotness and Andres Resino ( the boyfriend in WEREWOLF SHADOW ) does OK as a friend of the cop running the investigation. The copy I watched is from VSoM and looks like a 3rd gen dub. It's in Italian with English subs that get the job done. Sadly, it's also the covered version of the film and not the nude version that was prepared for export. The film was dubbed into English had played the US in 1976, and this presumably was the uncovered variant, but it's whereabouts are unknown. A real shame as it's up there with a lot of the Italian giallos and without the nudity, it comes off as a bit tame considering it's subject matter. Here's hoping it turns up someday, it's on the list with a few others that really need their nude versions found so these films can be properly appreciated. The plot description that mentions Jack's a cannibal this time around is bogus BTW.

The giallo was an Italian invention; however, there were several Spanish movies that are accepted entries in the genre. Seven Murders for Scotland Yard is a pretty typical example of this sub-genre of the sub-genre. It stars Iberian horror icon Paul Naschy in the lead role. In it he plays medical student turned acrobat who is the chief suspect in a series of prostitute murders in London. The killings recall the work of Jack the Ripper.

This is a pretty routine murder-mystery. It's hampered a bit by its low budget. It lacks the sense of style that most of its Italian counterparts had, so it comes across as somewhat more rough-edged. The murders themselves have pretty crude gore effects, while there is a distinct lack of nudity. The latter is clearly as a result of the Spanish origins, seeing as this was made in Franco's Spain and film nudity was a bit of a no-no – Spaniards like Jesus Franco had to make films in France and West Germany in order to ramp up the sex. The mystery itself isn't bad as such but the small cast means that there really aren't a lot of suspects to begin with. Still, it's certainly an entertaining enough flick, just don't go into it expecting too much.