Grip of the Strangler

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.