The Brighton Strangler

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.

Readily do I admit my complete ignorance about German-born Director Max Nosseck. Certainly, you can detect touches of the famous German expressionist school in this film, and Loder too provides a quality expressionist performance, all backed up by splendid B&W cinematography from Roy Hunt.

It stands to reason that a 6/10 rating must perforce reflect a number of weaknesses, the screenplay being most obvious one. Though it opens with an interesting premise, that of a play becoming more real than life itself to actor Reginald Parker after suffering concussion in the wake of an air raid on London, I found it highly improbable that the main character had such a good memory of the play but not of the rest of his life, notably his relationship with his beloved.

An unusual finale with applause provides a clever conclusion but by no means reduces the viewer's need to suspend disbelief.

All told, it deserves a watch but not a rewatch. 6/10.

In 1945 London a kind, gentle actor Reginald Parker (John Loder) is performing in a play called "The Brighton Strangler". During an air raid he's hit on the head. When he regains consciousness he has amnesia and begins playing out his character from the play.

The plot is old now but was probably new in 1945 and it is extremely well-done. The script is fast, there's good quick direction and there are some very creepy sequences. The acting by Loder is just great--he let's you see the confusion and hatred hiding behind his very gentle exterior. He reminded me of Laird Cregar who played similar roles in "The Lodger" (1944) and "Hangover Square" (1945). My guess is that this was made to cash in on the Cregar movies (both were huge hits).

The sets are just gorgeous and there's some truly funny comic relief -- both intentional and unintentional (it's hard to keep a straight face when one character keeps saying "swell" all the time). The only bad thing is June Duprez--she's beautiful but a very poor actress.

Well worth seeing if just for Loder. Why wasn't he more well known?

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."

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