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The Brighton Strangler
USA 1945
produced by Herman Schlom, Sid Rogell (executive) for RKO
directed by Max Nosseck
starring John Loder, June Duprez, Michael St.Angel, Miles Mander, Rose Hobart, Gilbert Emery, Rex Evans, Matthew Boulton, Olaf Hytten, Lydia Bilbrook, Ian Wolfe
written by Arnold Phillips, Max Nosseck, additional dialogue by Hugh Gray, music by Leigh Harline, special effects by Vernon L.Walker
review by Mike Haberfelner
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World War II-torn London: During the Blitz raid, famed stage actor
Reginald Parker (John Loder) gets knocked out and suffers a concussion complete
with selective amnesia - and when he comes to, he believes he's the
titular character of the latest play he's been in, The Brighton
Strangler ... so instead of going to Canterbury to marry his
girlfriend Dorothy (Rose Hobart) - also the writer of his play - he goes
to Brighton to murder those who he believes to be responsible for his
downfall, the mayor (Ian Wolfe) and the chief of police (Miles Mander),
both men who have of course never seen it since this is real life and
they're not characters of Reginald's play. Reginald goes about this rather
ingeniously though, using young and pretty April (June Duprez), a
servicegirl he has met on the train to Brighton, as his cover, a girl he
uses him as an alibi to meet Bob (Michael St.Angel), the man she has
secretly married. Bob of course has grown suspicious of Reginald since day
one, but hey, he just needed him anyways. But then he finds out Reginald
is only the famed actor of the play The Brighton Strangler, and he
puts two and two together, gets in touch with Dorothy, and ... well,
Reginald was just about to kill April when Dorothy can bring his memory of
who he actually is back - but he still has to fall of the roof of a hotel
where he wanted to strangle April to repent for his sins ... otherwise
everything ends happily, though. Quite a few nice ideas, a
macabre set-up and exciting suspense scenes ultimately amount to less than
they ought to because the film's premise (an actor believing to be his
signature character) just isn't believable enough (or at least isn't
presented in a believable enough way), thus it makes little sense and
doesn't manage to keep up the tension needed to really hammer its story
home. Now don't get me wrong, the film is far from a trainwreck, and for
a routine programmer it's actually pretty decent - it just ... well, could
have been much better.
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