Lo strangolatore

Tod Slaughter. 60 years ago he dominated British B movies, 30 years ago no one remembered him, to-day he is being re-discovered and given the respect he has always deserved. Welcome back Tod! Modern film historians compare him to Boris Karloff and while that is a nice accolade it is not entirely appropriate. If we have to compare Tod to another British screen villain I would choose Lionel Atwill. Oh yes, Boris could be menacingly evil but there was always a motivating force behind him, a drive that so obsessed him he lost sight of everything else (check out THE DEVIL COMMANDS or THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES or even BEFORE I HANG to see what I mean.) Lionel and Tod were evil for no other reason than they simply WANTED to be; they were mean and they liked it!

That having been said now lets discuss this movie. You know you are in for a great time when the picture has only just begun and a killer strikes by hammering a wooden spike into the ear of a sleeping man! That killer is our Tod (what a surprise!) and he impersonates the dead man, Sir Percival Glyde, to take possession of a large inheritance. Trouble rises when Tod discovers he has inherited nothing but a big stack of bills and if he wants to avoid Debtor's Prison he'd better find a rich wife right away! Is that a problem? Not for Tod, he has set his sights on a lovely young maiden in a nearby estate. So what if she is young enough to be his daughter she is rich and who knows, she just might have an . . .er . . . "accident" not long after the wedding.

This is melodrama at its best. The false Sir Percival is hardly inside his manor house before he begins canoodling with a buxom chambermaid. When she informs him that she is expecting his child he leads the gullible girl to the boat dock where he strangles her ("You wanted to be a bride? I'll make you one! A bride of Death! Heh, heh heh!") Meanwhile there is another woman hanging around who claims that Sir Percival is already married . . . to her, and they have a daughter! Honestly stealing a fortune is such a very complicated thing! Tod has to find a way to eliminate them too. Does he? You will find out.

Part of the fun of watching a Tod Slaughter film is seeing just how perversely evil he can be and knowing that at the end his fate will be a fitting one; this movie does not disappoint on any level.

Is this his best film? Some people say so; though my personal favourite is THE FACE AT THE WINDOW. Now sit back, imagine yourself in a British theatre back in the Victorian days and enjoy the show. Feel free to hiss the villain and cheer the hero and heroine. Enjoy!

I have to admit to having never seen a Tod Slaughter movie. What a great screen presence. What an absolute cad. He is the consummate conniver and master of perversity. He kills a man in Australia and takes over his identity. He becomes the Lord of the Manor and runs the household on his own rancid terms. He gets a servant girl pregnant. He marries a local landowner's daughter and does anything to get his hands on the money available to him. There are some wonderful performances, especially that of Hay Petrie, the great sniveling character actor. He consorts with Slaughter with hopes of getting some of the money himself. There are convenient murders and acts of desperation. Through it all, Slaughter laughs at the suffering of others. There is only one person in his world.

If you've never witnessed Tod Slaughter in action, then CRIMES AT THE DARK HOUSE is a great place to start. Slaughter truly lives up to his name, as he drives a stake through a sleeping victim's cranium in the opening scene! After assuming the dead man's identity, he learns that he's hit the jackpot, and has inherited an estate.

Upon arrival at his palatial new home, the new "Sir Percival Glyde" sets out to live a life of ease and debauchery with one of his cute chambermaids. Alas, "Glyde's" life gets complicated by several meddling pests, forcing him to kill nearly everyone in sight! Watch, as he gleefully dispatches his victims, then dumps their bodies in a secret burial ground! Listen as he chuckles, chortles, and cackles his way through his hideous crimes! This is Mr. Slaughter at his absolute best!

No one else could play the uproariously unscrupulous "Mr. Glyde" quite like this. Overwrought? Over the top? Of course! That's what's so bloody stupendous about Mr. Slaughter! He has been sadly overlooked, and deserves to be seen...

Now you could never describe Tod Slaughter as versatile, but as a pantomime baddie-cum-cad, you'll struggle to find someone better. Sure, his style of acting probably did lend itself better to silent films, but in this rather enjoyable drama he comes across quite mischievously. We start when he kills the real "Sir Percival" in the far-flung Australian gold fields then returns to claim his family fortune. Snag? Well what he actually inherits is £15,000 worth of debt. A massive sum at the time and so an advantageous marriage is required. Up steps "Laurie" (Sylvia Marriott). Long promised to "Sir Percival", she agrees to obey her father and go through with the marriage. Now there is a fly in the ointment for our impersonator, here. Virtually nobody remembers him after his twenty year absence except one woman who claims he fathered a child with her before he left. He denies it, as does she - but that's because she calls him out. That intrigues the local keeper of the sanatorium "Dr. Fosco" (Hay Petrie) who sees an opportunity to line his own pockets. None of this bodes well for "Laurie". Can her sister "Marian" (Hilary Eaves) and friend "Paul" (Geoffrey Wardwell) manage to save her from her increasingly lecherous, murderous, husband and his venal cohort? The poster describes this as ideal for midnight theatre on a Friday night and that's about right. There's not much jeopardy, but Slaughter overdoes it nicely as he hams up his performance towards the denouement that I was slightly disappointed with. Still, I don't suppose the baddie can ever win.... Fun, this - worth a watch.

Crimes at the Dark House is really one of my all-time favorites. Not only it's the best adaptation of Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (by far superior to the latter Hollywood version), but it's also the more perfect of the eight films produced/directed by George King with the great Tod Slaughter. This actor being one of my favorites, I like practically all of his movies, but the fact is that Crimes at the Dark House has better production values, witty dialogue, a better mobility of the camera, and wonderful actors, including the great Hay Petrie as the sinister Count Fosco, head of an insane asylum. The film has priceless value in keeping on film the performance of Slaughter, a really unique comedian, preserving one of his better characterizations. Sure, other titles like The Face at the Window, Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, The Crimes of Stephen Hawke, and others, must have their partisans - in fact anything with Tod Slaughter is of interest, but Crimes at the Dark House is MY choice. Curiously, did anybody noticed than the print of this movie has no credited director? the British sources (magazines, books, pressbook) credit George King generally, at least a big full-page color ad of the time credits David Macdonald, but the film itself has no director credit!