The Brighton Strangler

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.

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.

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

RKO's great artistic team of Silvera and D'Agostino, along with stylish director Nosseck and photographer Hunt, lift the visuals to near artistic heights. Even when the story falters, the dream-like atmosphere carries the ball. It appears stage actor Parker's (Loder) head gets conked during a London air raid. Now he has trouble separating his strangler stage role from everyday reality. Needless to say, this causes problems for him and a couple of corpses he leaves behind. On the whole, Loder is excellent as the schizoid Parker. His generally low-key demeanor proves as disturbing as anything more florid. If there's a problem, it's with the script's treatment of the lovely April (Duprez), who seems impossibly naïve. Like when she goes to the dark roof with Parker even after some of his semi-loony behavior. Still, I love that amusing moment when the English maid tries politely to get her head around American slang.

I'm impressed with Nosseck's ability to coordinate a spotty narrative into an atmospheric whole. Looks to me like he's in the Edgar Ulmer (Detour, {1945}) category, working artfully and anonymously in Hollywood's lower rungs. His American career appears limited by mostly innocuous programmers-- unlike Brighton-- which may be why he went back to Germany. Nonetheless, he appears to have a real feel for this sort of Gothic material. Overall, the 60- some minutes is close to a sleeper, except for the spotty script. It also helps show why lowly RKO was the studio of record during the post-war 1940's.

In 1947 Ronald Colman won an Oscar for Best Actor by portraying an actor who becomes obsessed with the role he is playing .This was Othello ,in Shakespeare's play of the same name .The obsession turns into violence and insanity .It was an A movie production featuring the acclaimed Colman and with the prestigious A list director George Cukor behind the camera . The Brighton Strangler was made 2 years earlier and deals essentially with the same theme but has more modest ambitions .It aims merely to be a neat little chiller and it achieves this ambition with some distinction .John Loder plays an actor in the West End of London during the German blitz on the city in World War 2 .He is playing a strangler in a long running play ;when the theatre is levelled by a German bomb he is rendered unconscious but survives .On waking he is an amnesiac and begins wandering the London streets in a dazed condition .He finds himself at Victoria railway station where he overhears a chance remark from a stranger that is an exact duplicate of one from the play .Convinved that he is really a strangler he boards a train for the seaside resort of Brighton where he begins to re-enact his stage role by embarking on a string of strangulation murders ,his steps dogged by the police. Loder is good and Max Nosseck directs with due skill aided by a good script. The supporting cast is capable and the movie will pass an hour or so with some pleasure for the viewer . Its not a major work but is a good study of dual personality along Jekyll and Hyde lines