Strangler's Web

Although The Edgar Wallace Mysteries were essentially B movie features. Strangler's Web was a strong entry.

An open and shut case that becomes convoluted.

A courting couple and a policeman hear a scream and find a murdered woman, Norma Brent. Her long term boyfriend John Vichelski is next to her and is immediately arrested.

Brent was a middle aged good time girl. A former actress who once appeared with the stars. Now she was over the hill but looking forward to some kind of a mysterious inheritance.

It seems Vichelski killed her after getting into a heated argument with her. Brent was seeing another man, a charming older accountant.

Lewis Preston is the solicitor who takes his case. He has acted for Vichelski before and doggedly pursues the case. He finds out that the accountant is a bit of a con man.

Brent was once involved with a former matinee idol who suddenly retired from acting after being disfigured in an accident. Preston visits him who lives in a big old house with his abrupt niece.

It is a story of an illegitimate child, bigamy and Vichelski being the fall guy. Someone even sends money anonymously to help with Vichelski's defence costs.

It is also a story about Preston. At first he looks like a man who is hopelessly lost as Vichelski.

In the opening scenes, Preston's wife wakes him from his drunken stupor. She tells him that she is leaving him and shows him the bruises that he inflicted on her.

Preston somehow manages to get in shape to investigate the case and surprisingly for these type of thrillers. Preston gets on well with Inspector Murray who is handling the case.

There is a hint of swinging sixties about this. Preston goes to a London disco where everyone talks and acts in a hip and happening way. It all looks a bit silly now.

Strangler's Web is an interesting story about a murder that is not nearly as open-and-shut as it first seems. The characters are unconventional and are well-drawn by both the screenplay and the actors while the investigation into what really happened trawls through various strata of British society.

The opening scene where the murder takes place borrows ideas from the pre-credit sequence of From Russia With Love. The murdered woman's common-law husband is found at the scene and is the obvious suspect. A solicitor with a drink problem and a tendency to beat his wife is appointed to prepare the defence. He finds that the suspect's conduct towards the murdered woman was not unlike his own towards his wife. He pulls himself together and gets to work. He comes across a wide variety of people including a confidence trickster, an air-brained young woman and a disfigured ex-matinée idol.

Not a moment is wasted in Strangler's Web and the pace never lets up. As were the other films in this Edgar Wallace series, the movie is well- photographed and edited.

What appears to be a cut-and-dried case of murder of an aging one time showgirl on Hampstead Heath by her lover is complicated by several factors, including a far more respectable paramour, and her insistence that a great inheritance was due her that nobody can verify.

An economical thriller with offbeat dialogue and humour, hand held camerawork and the sharp handling of flashbacks in which we hear the narrator but otherwise see the action play out silently from their point of view. The hero is a down and out solicitor who likes to drink and his wife leaves him for striking her. Not exactly a model citizen. The characters are quite offbeat - a talkative stepdaughter of a disfigured man with some perilous driving skills, a disfigured man who knew the dead woman and his strange niece/daughter. There's plenty to enjoy here. A bit convoluted, but overall a good mystery.