The Brighton Strangler

During WW II as one of the Luftwafte air raids hits London, Reginald Parker, a successful actor, is knocked out and heavily concussed. Upon awaking he believes himself to be Edward Grey, the notorious Brighton Strangler he has been portraying on the stage!

Clocking in at just 67 minutes, The Brighton Strangler just about has enough time to get in and do it's job excellently. Something of an under seen gem, it's a film that has enough creepy menace about it to reward the black and white thriller fan. Boasting excellent sets, some very neat camera work from director Max Nosseck and a fabulous lead performance from John Loder, I personally feel that it deserves to be seen by more people. Typically it's a picture that rarely gets aired on British TV, and when it does it's sadly tucked away on BBC 2 at some ungodly hour in the AM. Until film's like this get decent exposure from our TV schedulers then they are going to remain criminally under seen. So keep your eyes out for this one, the formula may now be seen as old hat, but transport yourself back to 1945, out in the London smog and be wary of that hatted man coming towards you.........8/10

The Brighton Strangler is another movie that BBC2 shown in the early hours over Christmas/New Year 2005-06 and I was certainly glad I taped this.

An actor who plays the part of The Brighton Strangler in the play of the same name is knocked unconscious by rubble during an air raid and has a memory lapse. When he wakes up, he thinks he is in the play and heads for Brighton instead of Canterbury, where he is meant to go. In Brighton, he starts strangling people including the Mayor and Chief Inspector. Police catch up with him in the end and realise what's happened to him.

The Brighton Strangler is rather eerie in parts, especially the nighttime scenes.

The cast includes John Loder in the title role and Jane Duprez, Ian Wolfe.

Watch this if you get the chance. Very eerie and obscure little movie.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

John Loder plays Reginald Parker, an actor whose portrayal of a serial killer has made him the toast of London's theater district. During the height of the german blitz Parker has tirelessly played the part to sold out crowds seeking diversion from the horrors of world war 2.

After nearly two years of constant work Parker is on the brink of exhaustion. When his wife and friends demand he take a break he agrees grudgingly but only after one last performance for on leave military personnel.

That night Parker stays late at the theater to review some last minute additions to the script. As he reads german bombers attack London. A stray bomb strikes the theater causing the roof to collapse on the unfortunate actor. He survives but recieves a nasty blow to the head. The blow gives him partial amnesia allowing him to recall nothing save that of the part he has paractically lived for the last two years.

Believing the details of the script are actual memories he comes to believe he is the Brighton Strangler. So it is off to Brighton where he begins hunting down those who resemble his victims from the play.

The plot is a rather far fetched and the story sags in the middle. But John Loder's tormented transform from kindly actor to maniacal killer makes the film worth a look.

It would require the labors of Hercules to spoil a movie that had June Duprez in a lead role. She's startling -- those chubby cheeks, that prominent mental symphysis, those slanted feline eyes, each looking in a slightly different direction, the breathlessly smooth voice. No. She's sui generis.

The movie isn't. It's one of several in which an actor is playing the role of a murderer on stage and gets mixed up about which role is which. Poor John Loder. He becomes amnesic after a bomb strike on his theater during the blitz, wanders around remembering nothing except bits and pieces of his stage role. It leads him to a meeting with June Duprez in Brighton where, following the play's plot, he strangles the mayor and the police commissioner. The last murder committed in the play is that of a woman who has begun to suspect him, and Duprez fits the bill in real life. Does he strangle her, you ask, kiddingly? If it's not entirely original, it's still a tidy little murder drama, nicely acted. Some comic relief is added by Michael St. Angel as an American officer -- "Gee whiz", "That cost twenty smackeroos," and"Okay, you can blow now."

The was a British film portraying a stage actor who is hit on the head during a bombing in World War II raid on London and then acts the "strangler" in the play he's in, forgetting that he's just an actor. It's an interesting premise. Most of the plot was pretty obvious but there was a twist or two thrown in which kept my attention.

However, to be honest, after about 40 minutes my mind started to wander, as the movie just plodded along. A story about a guy with "multiple personalities," so to speak, someone who can't distinguish anymore between fact and fiction, and winds up thinking he's "the Brighton Strangler" should have been a lot more interesting than it was. At 67 total minutes, there is no excuse for this to be a boring movie.

John Loder is good in the lead as "Reginald Parker/Edward Gray," but the story doesn't live up to his performance. It just sags, big-time, in that middle section. There are major plot holes in here, too. The guy plays a "famous" actor yet no one recognizes him. I bet if someone re-made this story, it could a chilling one.