Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Grip of the Strangler (1958)

Director: Robert Day

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

A Jekyll and Hyde tale set in London in the 1880s, with an immaculate performance from Karloff as a distinguished novelist and social reformer who investigates the case of 'The Haymarket Strangler' - suspecting that a sailor found guilty and executed was in fact innocent - and finds the trail leading in alarmingly compromising directions. Opening grimly with a public hanging (with callous crowd hungry for a spot of entertainment eagerly in attendance), and making evocative use of 'The Judas Hole' (a sleazy music hall whose scantily-clad girls become the target for murder), the whole film is powerfully underpinned by the repressive nature of Victorian society. Uncommonly gripping, wonderfully atmospheric, it has a real touch of the Val Lewtons.

Author: TM 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Robert Day

Producer: John Croydon

Cast: Boris Karloff, Elizabeth Allan, Jean Kent, Vera Day, Anthony Dawson, Tim Turner, Diane Aubrey full cast

Genre(s): Thrillers

Duration: 79 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.