Since I reviewed Robert Bloch’s Night of the Ripper earlier today, it only seems appropriate that Jack the Ripper should play a role in today’s horror scene that I love.

In the 1929 silent German film, Pandora’s Box, Louise Brooks plays Lulu who, through a series of misfortunes, goes from being the mistress of an upper middle class newspaper publisher to living in squalor in London.  Reduced to working as a prostitute, Lulu picks up her first client on Christmas Eve.  Little does she know that her client is actually the infamous murderer known as Jack the Ripper.  At first, Jack attempts to resist his urges by throwing away his knife but once they reach Lulu’s apartment, he discovers another.

This scene, which served as the film’s finale, was considered to be so controversial in 1929 that it was edited out of some prints, which had the effect of turning a tragic story about a woman forced into prostitution into a story about a woman who, following some bad luck, moves to London and is redeemed by volunteering for the Salvation Army.

Here is the original conclusion of Pandora’s Box: