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Classic horror in which a madman kills a man who has just inherited a large estate, then impersonates his victim to gain entrance to the estate so he can murder his enemies.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
By C. J. Marton
Format:DVD
It seems surprising - not knowing the copyright situation with Wilkie Collins original - that a quota quickie producer like George King should be able to get his hands on a respected literary source like THE WOMAN IN WHITE. However, the script rewrites the story so it is entirely told from the viewpoint of the false Sir Percival Glyde. Other adaptations might tell the tale from the viewpoint of the heroines as they struggle to unravel the mystery - but we are aware of the deception from the start as Tod creeps into a sleeping gold prospectors tent and dispatches him in a manner that suggests he's read Hamlet.
The disadvantage of this approach is that the fascinating, complex characters of Collins' text are flattened to one-dimensional cyphers. Laura is as much of a shrinking violet as she is in the novel but the fascinating figure of Marion (sapphic hints well suppressed here) is sidelined for much of the time. The annoyingly-hypochondriac Mr Fairlie seems more robust and more of a stock-comic figure. But the reduction of the fascinating figure of Count Fosco to Glyde's stooge is the most grievous oversight. Fosco - a roly-poly lovable eccentric who liked dogs and sunlight - was all the more chilling for being above suspicion unlike the obviously-villainous Glyde. For all that Hay Petrie brings to the part, it's just a shadow of what it could be. Still, Petrie and Slaughter make a fine pair of rogues - a cut-rate British version of Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.
What do we get in compensation for this? Two words - Tod Slaughter. His films are unique in that we get to view the story from the villain's perspective - imagine James Bond from Blofeld's viewpoint.... Read more ›
The disadvantage of this approach is that the fascinating, complex characters of Collins' text are flattened to one-dimensional cyphers. Laura is as much of a shrinking violet as she is in the novel but the fascinating figure of Marion (sapphic hints well suppressed here) is sidelined for much of the time. The annoyingly-hypochondriac Mr Fairlie seems more robust and more of a stock-comic figure. But the reduction of the fascinating figure of Count Fosco to Glyde's stooge is the most grievous oversight. Fosco - a roly-poly lovable eccentric who liked dogs and sunlight - was all the more chilling for being above suspicion unlike the obviously-villainous Glyde. For all that Hay Petrie brings to the part, it's just a shadow of what it could be. Still, Petrie and Slaughter make a fine pair of rogues - a cut-rate British version of Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.
What do we get in compensation for this? Two words - Tod Slaughter. His films are unique in that we get to view the story from the villain's perspective - imagine James Bond from Blofeld's viewpoint.... Read more ›
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Though largely forgotten over the course of time, Tod Slaughter was one of cinema's greatest "bad guy" actors, playing the role of the villain to the very hilt. Crimes at the Dark House is a showcase of his talents-the "up to no good" expression, the gleefully evil hand-rubbing, the overt stroking of the mustache, and, best of all, the laugh. Only Vincent Price rivals Slaughter in the deviously evil cackle department. Slaughter enjoyed being the villain, cackling his way from one dastardly deed to another. Maybe he hams it up a little bit, but that was the style of the times. Nobody did it better, and I hope that Slaughter's work will continue to reemerge and be appreciated by today's audiences.
Crimes at the Dark House opens with a murder. In the gold territories of Australia, Tod Slaughter's character sneaks into a tent and kills its occupant by driving a tent peg through his head. Going through the man's papers, he discovers that the dead man is Sir Henry Glyde and has just been called home upon the death of his wealthy father. Slaughter's character (we never learn his real name) goes to London and passes himself off as Glyde. To his dismay, he finds out that he has "inherited" a debt rather than a fortune, but his "father" has chosen a wealthy bride for his "son." (His marriage to the unwilling lass doesn't stop him from giving the chambermaid new "duties," of course.) Things are complicated by the fact that the real Sir Glyde married and fathered a child before leaving for Australia two decades earlier, and the fruit of that union has escaped an institution with twenty years of hatred for Glyde built up inside her. Naturally, Glyde's plans begin to unravel, and a string of murders only makes things worse. Even the reliable old "switcheroo" ruse blows up in his face.
... Read more ›2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A chisel in the neck and strangled corpses tossed in the lake, plus chortles. It must be Tod Slaughter
20 Oct 2008
Format:DVD
Think of a cross between Alan Mowbray and John Barrymore in his last, eyebrow-wagging years and you might have some idea of Tod Slaughter. He was a large, fleshy man with, when he lowered his head, a magnificent double chin. Not a man to hide his hamminess under a cloak of talent, he brought delight to evil with lip-smacking relish in any number of British movies and stage plays. As the false Sir Percival Glyde in Crimes at the Dark House, he brings to mustache-fingering and lascivious chuckling a kind of lovable, horrid fascination. We learn the kind of role Slaughter was noted for when, at the start of Crimes at the Dark House, in the year 1850, he uses a mallet to drive a chisel into the neck of the real Sir Percival, all the while snickering with pleasure.
The movie is based, sort of, on Wilkie Collins' grand old Victorian melodrama, The Woman in White. It races by in just 69 minutes, far too fast for us to be bored. Is the movie as bad as some of the acting? Not at all. In fact, like the book, it's quite a page turner, complete with lethal stratagems, a mad woman roaming the grounds of a lonely mansion, one hidden marriage and an unwelcome one, strangled women and cold cells in an insane asylum. Of course, there is love as well as death, and cleansing retribution comes in the engulfing flames of, what else, a family church.
Above all, there is the great, hammy performance of Tod Slaughter. He chisels to death the real Sir Percival Glyde in the Australian outback, then assumes Sir Percival's identity when he returns to England to his victim's' ancestral home, Blackwater Park. He expects to find an inheritance of great wealth. Instead he finds nothing but mortgages and debt.... Read more ›
The movie is based, sort of, on Wilkie Collins' grand old Victorian melodrama, The Woman in White. It races by in just 69 minutes, far too fast for us to be bored. Is the movie as bad as some of the acting? Not at all. In fact, like the book, it's quite a page turner, complete with lethal stratagems, a mad woman roaming the grounds of a lonely mansion, one hidden marriage and an unwelcome one, strangled women and cold cells in an insane asylum. Of course, there is love as well as death, and cleansing retribution comes in the engulfing flames of, what else, a family church.
Above all, there is the great, hammy performance of Tod Slaughter. He chisels to death the real Sir Percival Glyde in the Australian outback, then assumes Sir Percival's identity when he returns to England to his victim's' ancestral home, Blackwater Park. He expects to find an inheritance of great wealth. Instead he finds nothing but mortgages and debt.... Read more ›
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