Strangler's Morgue

source: The Curse of the Wraydons

The Curse of the Wraydons

A rather slow moving film set in rural Essex during the era of Napoleon which is only enlivened when Tod Slaughter, that juiciest of hams, is on the screen either laughing like a maniac, ogling a pretty maiden, disguising himself as a blind beggar or breaking someone's neck. Or throwing knives. Supposedly based on the play 'Spring-Heeled Jack or The Terror Of London' there isn't any spring-heeling (or even leaping about) in it unfortunately. There is a spy theme that isn't really developed. Apart from Tod as 'The Chief' the rest of the cast are a bit dull. The cinematography by S. D. Onions is tolerable on location though the interior sets do look rather meagre. Only worth seeing for Mr. Slaughter slaughtering.

Madness runs in some families, in the Wraydons it practically gallops in this poky but generally good-looking pre-Victorian melodrama that marked everyone's favourite wicked uncle's return to the big screen after being obliged to confine his villainy to the stage for the duration of the War by official discouragement of horror films (although his thirties vehicles had continued to do the rounds in cinemas). A whiskerless Tod Slaughter is only Spring Heeled Jack in name, since he skulks about rather than leaps and the action is actually set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars, over thirty years before the first alleged sightings of the 'historical' Jack in 1837.

It would appear that the reviewer from Australia was unaware of Slaughter's reputation for performing in these overheated melodramas,and that he is generally sending up the whole genre.Unfortunately he cannot disguise the sheer awfulness of the whole procedure.The films he made for George King before the war are far superior to his later efforts for Ambassador filmed at the very small studios in Bushey.The main problem is that the film is just so boring it is impossible to hold the attention.Also it has to be said that Slaughter is well past his prime here.It was without the worst of his films and watchable only by those who are devotees of either the genre or of Slaughter himself.