Gross-humored, frequently tasteless satire is rather like Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" transplanted to England's House of Lords--and then played at the wrong speed. After the Earl of Gurney accidentally kills himself during one of his fetish games, the 14th Earl--son Jack--is groomed to accept the crown. Mad Jack, who believes himself to be Christ, then undergoes a mental transformation on the night of his son's birth and self-metamorphoses into Jack the Ripper. Screenwriter Peter Barnes, adapting his play, doesn't have much of a story to tell here; his script is basically a dartboard for the one-liners (some of which are very funny and are a compensation). Barnes' material is aimed at upper-crust audiences, the "hip" intelligentsia who like to label such efforts as "savage'. The cast is game, and director Peter Medak knows what he's doing, yet these nutty fantasies are merely clotheslines for Barnes to hang his maddening soliloquies on. Peter O'Toole (with cartoony strawberry-blond hair) has some terrific moments early on--particularly in the musical send-ups--but he later begins to bellow and rarely stops. ** from ****