Murder By Decree | 1979
There are plenty of real locations around London and Southeast England in this star-studded Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper drama, featuring the corruption-in-high-places theory that's been well-explored since.
American director Bob Clark had an unpredictable career, going on to direct Porky's, Black Christmas and US seasonal fave A Christmas Story.
Apart from location filming, there are two large scale studio sets. Most of the cobbled 'Whitechapel' streets where 'The Ripper' stalks his victims from a coach, is a huge set built at Elstree Studios in Borehamwood. The other major set is the Thames wharf built at Shepperton Studio, utilising the studio's water tanks.
On to the real stuff. The film begins with crowds arriving at the 'Royal Opera House'. We know what this is since someone has thoughtfully hung a banner across the front reading 'Royal Opera House'.
In the Director's Commentary, Bob Clark describes the location as the Tate Gallery but, since he also refers to the chimes of Big Ben as those of the Tower of London clock, he's perhaps not the most reliable guide to London.
In fact, it's Burlington House on Piccadilly, home of the Royal Academy. The statue in the forecourt is not a great composer or conductor but painter Sir Joshua Reynolds.
The opera house interior where Holmes (Christopher Plummer) and Watson (James Mason) occupy a box to enjoy "Donnizetti's" Lucrezia Borgia (not as popular these days as Donizetti's version) is Wyndham's Theatre on Charing Cross Road, alongside the entrance to Leicester Square tube station.
There's a mixed reaction to the as the Prince of Wales makes his delayed appearance (applause from the expensive stalls seats, boos from the upper gallery), introducing the theme of London's polarised attitudes to the ruling class.
Holmes and Watson return to '221b Baker Street', which in this film is 2 Barton Street, Westminster SW1. Although most of the street is Regency, this particular house stands out a little as it was built in 1897 – and that's nine years after the events seen in the film. Above the door (in real life) a sign reads "Peace on thy house passer by".
"This is the area the real Sherlock Holmes would have lived" asserts director Clark as flummoxed Conan Doyle fans mutter "Oh no it isn't" under their collective breath.
Movie makers seem to side with Clark, though.
9 Barton Street also became '221b Baker Street' in the cheekily revisionist 1988 Without A Clue, though this time it's the home of brilliant Dr Watson (Ben Kingsley) who hires drunken actor Reginald Kincaid (Michael Caine) to bring to life his fictitious creation 'Sherlock Holmes'.
Directly opposite number 2, there's a little real-life history with 14 Barton Street, which was home to TE Lawrence, known to history as Lawrence of Arabia.
As more East End women are murdered, discontent with the police grows and a psychic called Robert Lees (Donald Sutherland) claims to have seen the killer in a vision. Lees' home, where he's later visited by Holmes disguised as a chimney sweep is 'The Elms'.
Oddly enough, this turns out to be the real name of the house which is The Elms, a 19th century mansion on Ducks Walk in St Margarets-on-Thames across the Thames from Richmond, Southwest London. Once a hotel it's now private flats, and only a few minutes' walk from Twickenham Film Studios.
Lees' intuition leads the police to a house he senses may be home to the killer. When this turns out to be the home of a respectable surgeon to the royal family, the psychic is intimidated into silence by Police Commissioner Sir Charles Warren (Anthony Quayle).
This house is 2 Carlton Gardens, a tiny street running between Carlton House and Pall Mall in St James's SW1 and yes, it's close to several royal properties. It was once home to Lord Kitchener (now largely remembered from the World War I recruiting poster "Your country needs YOU", with that sternly pointing finger) and to Section Y, the arm of the British secret service responsible for monitoring the old Soviet Union during the Cold War.
And it's something of a screen favourite. You can see it as home of the villain in Stanley Donen’s 60s romp Arabesque, with Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren; as home of the Baroness (Emma Thompson), where Estella (Emma Stone) attempts a daring robbery during the ‘Black and White Ball’ in Disney's Cruella; and as the site of the upper-crust ball where the presence of Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) causes a scandal in Downtown Abbey: The Grand Finale.
The wider views of Central London through which carriages drive are the familiar grounds of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, London SE10.
The complex, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was built as the Royal Hospital for Seamen, a home for naval veterans, on the site of the old Greenwich Palace, where both King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I were born.
Greenwich, on the Thames, is famed for its maritime history and the site went on to become the Royal Naval College, used until 1998 when the navy moved out. It’s now mixed use – part historic monument, part university.
Its spacious grounds and spectacular Painted Hall (a feature not seen in Murder By Decree) have been seen in countless productions, including Les Misérables, The Madness Of King George, Jurassic World: Rebirth, Cruella, Four Weddings And A Funeral, Thor: The Dark World, The Dark Knight Rises, Fast And Furious: Hobbs & Shaw, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Mummy Returns, The Duchess, The Young Victoria, Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Music Lovers and The Bounty.
When Holmes attends the funeral of one of the murdered women, it seems oddly elaborate for a poor East End streetwalker. In fact, although it's not mentioned in the film, someone did pay for a lavish funeral for one of the victims.
It's here that Holmes's eye is caught by the haunted Mary Kelly (Susan Clark). The funeral takes place at Southwark Cathedral, London Bridge, Southwark SE1, south of the Thames.
The Cathedral was also used for Cinderella's wedding to Prince Charming at the end of Bryan Forbes' The Slipper and the Rose.
From the Cathedral, Holmes follows Mary along Cathedral Street to Clink Street where he catches up with her in front of what was the old Clink Gaol. In the 1980s, this was still an area of narrow cobbled alleys and old warehouses but much has since been developed.
This stretch of Clink Street is still recognisable, though it's been spruced up enough to ensure it's not likely to feature in a period film again.
You might recognise it was the stretch of road, supposedly near Piccadilly Circus, where the lycanthrope is finally cornered at the end of John Landis's An American Werewolf in London.
It's at the other (western) end of Clink Street, at Pickford's Wharf, that Holmes is knock to the ground and Mary gets bundled into the speeding coach. The street layout remains but this area is heavily rebuilt.
Tipped off about the fate of someone called Annie Crook (Geneviève Bujold), Holmes and Watson track her down to an asylum "near Reading".
The facility is Stanmore Hall on Wood Lane, Stanmore in Middlesex. The Hall used to be an favourite location, particularly for TV series such as The Avengers, The Saint, The Professionals and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) as well as Hammer's Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed and Nothing But The Night.
At first glance, it looks a little like Oakley Court (the Rocky Horror and Hammer location near Bray Studios in Berkshire) which has caused some confusion.
Having now discovered too much, Holmes is summoned to a meeting with the Prime Minister Lord Salisbury (John Gielgud). En route, Holmes looks balefully out of the cab at the East Front of Buckingham Palace wondering how far the cover-up reaches. In 1888 the famous East Front would have looked significantly different. The balcony now so familiar from all those royal appearances wasn't added until 1913.
For the meeting with the Prime Minister, Holmes arrives at Church House, Dean's Yard, in the shadow of Westminster Abbey, Westminster SW1 which you can access via an entrance gate on Victoria Street alongside the Abbey. The interior is a studio set.
Church House is, like it sounds, is headquarters of the Church of England but is now also used as an events space.
