A Study in Terror

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never wrote a story in which the fictional Sherlock investigated the real-life Jack the Ripper case. However, Scotland Yard consulted Dr. Joseph Bell, the real-life inspiration for Holmes, about the case.

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Frank Finlay also played Inspector Lestrade in Murder by Decree (1979), another film that pitted Sherlock Holmes against Jack the Ripper. Anthony Quayle appeared in both films in different roles.

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The film was known for being graphically violent for its time. However, the murder of Jack the Ripper's last victim had to be toned down. As depicted in the film, Mary Kelly was the only victim killed indoors, where Jack the Ripper had time to do his work. Kelly was literally butchered. Horrific photographs of her dismembered body still exist.

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Robert Stephens was the first choice to play Sherlock Holmes. He later appeared in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970).

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The film features one of the few guns Dr. Watson could probably have used as a service pistol in the British Army, the.476-caliber Enfield Mk II (used by Holmes to shoot the vase in the sitting room). It first entered service in 1880, the famous year Watson was wounded at the Battle of Maiwand.

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Thorley Walters was offered the role of Dr. John H. Watson. He had previously played Watson in Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962) and later took on the same role in The Best House in London (1969), The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975) and Silver Blaze (1977).

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All five victims depicted in the film (Annie Chapman, Mary Ann Nichols, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly) really existed.

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Although the Prime Minister is not named, he is thought to be Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (Lord Salisbury), who was in office during the 1888 Jack the Ripper murders.

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Barbara Windsor and June Brown, a lead actress in EastEnders (1985), played the murder victim Annie Chapman. Brown did so in Murder by Decree (1979), which also has Sherlock Holmes on the trail of Jack the Ripper.

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Jack the Ripper's first victim, Mary Ann Nichols, had bought a new hat and was very proud of it on the night she was killed. This detail is attributed to Annie Chapman, the third victim in the film but the second in reality.

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The credits carried the standard disclaimer: "All characters and events in this film are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental." The character names of Mary Jane "Polly" Nichols, Catherine "Cathy" Eddowes, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth "Liz" Stride and Mary Kelly were the real names of Jack the Ripper's actual victims.

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John Neville (Sherlock Holmes) and John Fraser (Lord Edward Carfax) both played Lord Alfred Douglas in 1960 Oscar Wilde biopics: Neville in Oscar Wilde (1960) and Fraser in The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960). Robert Morley (Mycroft Holmes) played Wilde in the former.

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Jim O'Connolly was initially assigned to direct.

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Barry Jones appeared in the BBC series Sherlock Holmes (1964).

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The film is set in 1888.

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Mary Kelly's single-room flat was on the ground floor.

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This was Harriet Devine's last film.

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Terry Downes had recently ended his career as a middleweight boxer in the United Kingdom. The significance of the role of Chunky, Annie Chapman's friend, is generally overlooked: before the serial killer's "Dear Boss" letter was widely circulated, he was known in the cheap and lurid press as Leather Apron, after several local prostitutes referred to a man in unusual clothing. John Pizer (a Whitechapel bootmaker who bore that nickname and had previously been convicted of stabbing) was in fact questioned about the deaths, but was found to have a strong alibi and was therefore ruled out as a suspect.

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Although heavily abridged, the content of the "Dear Boss" letter read aloud by Watson in Baker Street is in fact the wording of the red-ink letter received by the Central News Agency on Thursday, 27 September 1888 and claimed to be from Jack the Ripper.

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Kay Walsh and Georgia Brown both played Nancy in adaptations of Oliver Twist: Walsh in David Lean's 1948 film and Brown in the original West End stage production of Lionel Bart's musical version of Oliver!.

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The Italian censorship visa # 47164 was issued on 8 June 1966.

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The British Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901.

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