Crimes at the Dark House

Tod Slaughter plays(or over plays) another delightfully evil scoundrel in this British melodrama. The hard drinking and womanizing character Slaughter plays commits one evil act after another while delivering lines like "I`ll feed you`re entrails to the pigs" and "I`ll squeeze the life out of you`re greasy body". He actually gives his mustache a twirl ala Snidely Whiplash who could have been based on him. This is hardly even a B-Picture but its lots of fun.

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.

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!

The Woman in White, a great novel penned by Wilkie Collins, serves as the backbone for this Reader's Digest version of the novel adapted by Edward Dryhurst and produced/directed by Tod Slaughter regular George King. Slaughter also served as a producer, and this films has higher production values than most of Slaughter/King's previous efforts. While I enjoy the movie vastly, I am hesitant to call it the best of Slaughter's work. Give me The Face at the Window or even better Murder in the Red Barn where Slaughter leers more in one movie than twelve men could in twelve movies! Notwithstanding that this film is quite good as Slaughter opens the film drilling a nail/spike into a sleeping man's head in the Australian outback and assumes his identity going to England as the new lord of the manor. Slaughter immediately takes note of the young blonde maid who he raise up to chambermaid. With Slaughter's eyes rolling, his heavy-handed gesturing, and his tone and inflection, you know exactly what his intentions are at every moment. I know of no other actor who acts this way and could get away with acting this way. Slaughter does it so effortlessly, and let's be honest - if you are watching this film it is more than likely to see him. He is larger than life. The thickest slice of ham I have ever seen in films. The adaptation of Collin's novel has many shortcomings but stays surprisingly faithful to the main parts. The direction of King is adequate and the other performers are really rather good. Slaughter dispatches of people with glee and has some wonderful scenes with Hay Petrie as Isidor Fosco - a scoundrel of a different stripe so to say. Leering, drowning, hackling maniacally all are part of the Tod Slaughter package here. If you still have not seen one of his films, this one is as good as any to begin seeing what all the fuss - deserved and still not completed in any way - is about regarding Tod Slaughter.