'Jack the Ripper' episode in Boris Karloff's series 'The Veil' (1958)

[Chris Phillips]

An episode in a series made in 1958 but never broadcast - can be seen on YouTube. Unfortunately the only one in which Karloff appears only as narrator:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyk447aN52w

This is a version of the R. J. Lees story. I thought it was interesting that the detective featured was Chief Inspector McWilliam of Scotland Yard [sic]. Perhaps someone more conversant with Ripper literature up to the 1950s can explain why McWilliam would have been chosen for a starring role at that time.

[Gary Barnett]

Thanks for that, Chris. I’ll take a gander later.

[R. J. Palmer]

I thought it was interesting that the detective featured was Chief Inspector McWilliam of Scotland Yard [sic]. Perhaps someone more conversant with Ripper literature up to the 1950s can explain why McWilliam would have been chosen for a starring role at that time.

It's definitely a strange one. I think McWilliam's role as an investigating officer in one of the murders was virtually unknown or forgotten until the City of London records were made public years later.

The screenwriter is listed as Michael Plant, only 28, an Australian from Sydney, whose parents were also Australian, though I took a quick peek and I see that they were married in London. (His father was a General in the Australian Army). Plant evidently wrote for radio and television from a very young age and did some acting.

If 'Inspector McWilliam of Scotland Yard' was just an invention, it's a heck of a coincidence, unless Plant picked up the name from some little-known source.

[Chris Phillips]

It's definitely a strange one. I think McWilliam's role as an investigating officer in one of the murders was virtually unknown or forgotten until the City of London records were made public years later.

The screenwriter is listed as Michael Plant, only 28, an Australian from Sydney, whose parents were also Australian, though I took a quick peek and I see that they were married in London. (His father was a General in the Australian Army). Plant evidently wrote for radio and television from a very young age and did some acting.

If 'Inspector McWilliam of Scotland Yard' was just an invention, it's a heck of a coincidence, unless Plant picked up the name from some little-known source.

McWilliam got a mention in McCormick's book the following year, in a quotation from the Police Gazette, so he wasn't completely unknown as a Ripper detective, but I was surprised.

The precise origins of this TV episode seem a bit mysterious. Apparently it was made in Britain as part of another series, and purchased by the makers of the American series to pad out the quantity of 'The Veil'. But I can't find the name of the British series online.

[R. J. Palmer]

I don't know about the first edition, but in the revised edition, McCormick calls him "MacWilliam." The television episode gets it right.