Crimes at the Dark House (1940)

you just gotta love our evil character, he kills a guy in the beginning,, takes his ring,, his estate and takes over his whole entire life,, get's to marry one of the richest and prettiest maidens around,, he got a houseful of servants, and one cute one too boot, this movie is so funny , from start to end,, it was hard to keep a straight face,, so many lines from the butler , the lawyer, to sir Percival, were just too darn funny,, all of the killing he must do in order to keep his secret.. he has to get rid of several meddling people in order to keep everything on the up and up,, and the way he goes about it so nonchalant like it doesn't even bother him to kill these people.. and he is so jolly about it,, always twirling that mustache of his, there are a few people trying to stop him,, but they don't really show up till near the end of the movie. his assistant is probably the best character in the movie,, doesn't want to drink, but obliges, he get's cast deeper and deeper into Percival's sick plot, and soon the two are thick as thieves. well this was an amazing movie,, will watch again next year definitely.

All I can say is LOL. This was a riot.The central character in this mystery is a rotten egg from the word go. Instead of following a protagonist, we follow a horrific evil, but the story is told in such a way that we can follow with a sort of Monty Python style of black humor in his escapades, fully aware that it would take a miracle for him to pull off his charade as he murders a man and assumes his identity.This impostor can best be described in three words and I quote: stink, stank, stunk. In a sort of deranged Long John Silver style, he kills and kills and lies his way through the story to the end.The only real negative contrivance is the "look alike", which you'll find, but that does help set up an interesting bit. The rescue from the asylum didn't make much sense, as it would've been easier to just get witnesses and come back to expose the fraud who put the lookalike there. (I think I said this in such a way that it isn't a spoiler) But the movie is a good ride.

Wilkie Collin's novel "The Woman in White" has been the subject of two films and an Andrew Lloyd Webber stage musical that recently had a brief run on Broadway. It is basically a story of scandal and fraud amongst Europe's upper crust. This is the first film version, made in England during a period that many poverty row studios were making abridged versions of classic novels. Some of these, such as a British version of "Scrooge", are actually pretty good, but most of them, like "Jane Eyre", "Oliver Twist", and "The Scarlet Letter" come off as abridged versions that barely attempt to give any sort of character development. In the case of "The Woman in White", this 69 minute film goes into a little more depth than the ones listed above, but rather than being presented as a representation of the Gothic novel it was based on, it is more of a horror film made to show off the hamminess of its leading man, Tod Slaughter. As the fake Count Percival Glyde, Slaughter takes over the estate of the man he is seen brutally murdering in the first scene of the film. Slaughter sneers and laughs as he goes through his horrific actions to keep control of the status he has achieved through nefarious means. Slaughter is so over the top that he makes Charles Laughton seem subtle in comparison. His acting style is so close to camp that you can't help but laugh every time he commits a horrible crime. In the four films that I have seen of his so far, I felt that his films seem like they were meant for the silent era. His villains all seem so one dimensional of the mustache twirling school of acting. Even Bela Lugosi in his Monogram cheapies showed some underlying motivations for his criminal actions, yet Slaughter's acting is so silly you'd think you were watching a live version of cartoon characters Snidely Whiplash or Boris Badinoff. In that sense, these films are fun to watch because they are so delightfully bad, like an old silent Pearl White serial or an early 20th century stage melodrama. I wonder if Lugosi and Karloff watched these films and toned down their performances based on their reactions to his performance. It is also interesting to note that Slaughter's looks were not transfered over into the recent musical version to his character, but to Michael Crawford's (in London) and Michael Ball's (both in London and on Broadway) character of the comic villain Dr. Fosco (played here by Hay Petrie).I always thought that every Tod Slaughter movie should include that line, "You shall be a bride. A bride of death!". He first used that line on screen in "Murder in the Red Barn" and repeats it here again to a buxom parlor maid. It's sort of like Mel Brooks' constant use of the lines, "Walk this way" and "It's good to be the king!". No Tod Slaughter movie should be complete without it. In the 1940's British cinema made many technical strides that made some of their films seem almost modern in comparison to American films of that era, but many of the films made there in the 1930's seem quite creaky when compared to those made just a few years later. The 1948 Warner Brothers version had more of a Gothic style to its storytelling (and a much higher budget and well known cast), and the musical's filmed background gave the impression that the character's lives were as flat as the setting. It is interesting to have seen this story done by three different perspectives that I wonder how it would work as a film today. I had no idea that the British version of "The Woman in White" had even been made until I purchased it on DVD as part of my ongoing film study. Interesting to note that this is one of two Tod Slaughter films made that were later turned into musicals (the other is "Sweeney Todd", which a revival of ironically opened around the same time as "The Woman in White").

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!