The Haunted Strangler

Plot

In Victorian London, Edward Styles is accused of being the notorious Haymarket Strangler, the brutal killer of five women. Twenty years after he is tried and executed for these crimes James Rankin (Karloff), a novelist and social reformer, launches an investigation to prove that Styles is innocent. His search for clues leads him first to the sleazy Judas Hole music hall, where the Strangler picked his victims from the resident can-can dancers and loose women, and then to the prison cemetery of Newgate where Styles was buried - in order to exhume his body. When the killings start again, Rankin's theory seems to be vindicated. However his growing obsession with the case signals a most unwelcome revelation as to the true identity of the murderer.

Cast

Production

The film was originally to be called Stranglehold and was written by Jan Read, a friend of Boris Karloff's. He gave the script to producer Richard Gordon, who was looking to make a horror movie in the UK. Gordon set up Amalgamated Productions with Charles Vetters and had started providing US funding and talent for B pictures shot in Britain.

Amalgamated went into partnership with British producer John Croydon and negotiated a deal with distributor Eros Films who agreed to guarantee 70% of the film's budget after delivery of the final product. The remaining 30% of the budget was provided by the National Film Finance Corporation.

The agreement with Eros was conditional on Amalgamated providing a second film, so Gordon arranged to make Fiend Without a Face back to back with a different cast and director. MGM picked up the film for release. Gordon later estimated the cost of the two movies together was approximately £80,000 exclusive of the costs of imported American stars.

Read's script was rewritten by John Croydon who brought in the idea of making the killer a Jack the Ripper style murderer and having the transformation be physical (in the original draft Rankin was only possessed by the killer's spirit).

The film was shot in Walton Studios in Surrey. Karloff was paid $27,500 for four weeks, with an option to make a second film for Amalgamated.

Reception

According to MGM records this film and Fiend Without a Face together earned $350,000 in the US and Canada and $300,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit to the studio of $160,000.