Scotland Yard's Chamber Of Crime: True Stories From The Black Museum

Made for British TV, this slightly lurid documentary is hosted by Bill Waddell, Curator of the Black Museum, Scotland Yard's little shop of horrors, so to speak, commemorating the infamous crimes of notorious Brits. Leading off with the case of Jack the Ripper (which remains unsolved), the program spends a few minutes on a number of famous cases, including J.G. Haigh (the acid bath murderer, circa 1949), Ruth Ellis (the last woman hanged in Britain, circa 1955), the Great Train Robbery (1963), and Dennis Nilsen, the infamous Butcher of Muswell Hill (1983). In each of the episodes, viewers are treated to crime photos, on-location visits, and often, an interview with the police constable involved with the investigation. The major drawback of the video is that people who watch the tape expecting to find major feats of brilliant sleuthing or forensics (as I did) will be disappointed. The stories are funneled through in such cursory fashion that one gets only the highlights (or lowlights) of the story without much talk about the process of solving the crime and catching the criminal. So, for instance, in the Great Train Robbery segment, viewers will neither learn how the crime was committed, nor how the criminals were caught; but they'll find out how much the robbers got away with. Nicely filmed and possessing the kind of built-in interest that grabs people at supermarket checkout aisles, Scotland Yard's Chamber of Crime: True Stories from the Black Museum would certainly be a popular addition to the video collection; it's just not an exceptionally good one. An optional purchase. (Available from most distributors.)