The performance of Jack Palance is the main reason to see The Man in the Attic. It is one of his most restrained performances and all the better for it, he is perfectly cast, looking the part with his tall slender frame and Machiavellian features, and his emotionally vulnerable and also sinister interpretation is a most interesting one.
He is well supported by most of the supporting cast, with Rhys Williams being very good and Constance Smith is very charming in a rather caricatured role. Byron Palmer is appropriately business-like in the police inspector role. Frances Bavier just about passes muster and suitably cynical but her accent with those twangy vowels(the pronunciation of bag jars) is not convincing at all while Tita Phillips is weak and wooden as maid Daisy. The Man in the Attic looks great, with Victorian London being sumptuously and chillingly evoked and the black and white cinematography is beautifully done. The Man in the Attic has a haunting, chilling even in the first five minutes(which is also the most suspenseful the film gets), music score that adds a great deal to the film's atmosphere, it is more 1950s than authentic 1888 but it is not that jarring actually.
The script while predictable in places is at times subtly amusing and often thoughtful without falling into the traps of being too speculative, one-sided or insisting it's the truth. The story is staid in action but it is involving and neatly structured with a truly exciting horse and carriage chase, having enough to keep you hooked. Slade is an interesting character, the film entertains and is well-paced, deliberate but never dull.
It's a good film that does a lot right but at the same time it felt that something was missing. It is lacking in suspense and feels at times a little too neat and too careful, with the exceptions of the opening and the chase, with not quite enough to keep you guessing, mainly because I was convinced that Slade was guilty early on. This could have been improved a little if Slade was introduced later and that more was done with the investigating, what made Jack the Ripper so infamous and the murders, while what the film did with focusing on Slade was admirable it was a little too character driven. Jack the Ripper's murders were among the most shocking in history, and The Man in the Attic handled its murders rather ordinarily with them only being described.
The Man in the Attic does end very abruptly and predictably with it being obvious how things were going to end, though keeping things ambiguous and open for interpretation was a wise move and the right(and only) thing to do, otherwise there would have been criticisms about the film butchering history. The Man in the Attic is also severely hurt by the musical numbers which should have been scrapped altogether. They are completely out of place, completely irrelevant to the story, are uninteresting choreographed(being more vulgar than sexy) and only manage to slow the film down. Overall, a good, enjoyable and well-made film with a great Palance and the many good things done very well indeed but something was missing. 6.5/10 Bethany Cox
