Demon Barber of Fleet S.

Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (produced and directed by the great George King in 1936) features Tod Slaughter in one of his most famous roles. In my mind, no one ever played a villain more ably than Slaughter, and even though I don't consider this film to be his best work, he is marvelous nonetheless. Sweeney Todd is not your everyday barber, but as he gleefully says several times, he loves his work. He especially loves wealthy customers just disembarking from foreign lands. He puts them in his favorite chair, sends his apprentice next door for a meat pie, and then proceeds to "polish off" his customer. A surreptitious pull of a switch is all it takes to flip the chair over and dump the unsuspecting victim head first into the cellar. The meat pie seller next door is in cahoots with him and the dastardly pair split whatever money they find (though not 50-50 if Todd can help it). It is pretty much assumed that the dead bodies are disposed of, to some degree, in the meat pies sold next door, but this is not made explicit in the film (just as we never get to see Todd use his razor to finish off any victim who may not have been killed by his fall). Although Todd is making a lot of money, he wants more. He concocts a business deal with a ship owner that eventually puts him in the position of blackmailing the man's daughter to marry him (Tod Slaughter's characters always go for the ladies), and he even manages to get his rival for the girl's affections in his chair after the man returns home a rich man. Alas, Todd's brilliant villainy cannot last. The ending of the movie was a little bit disappointing to me because the heroes' plans of exposing Todd are really pretty foolish and seemingly of little use, and Todd's own actions at the end seem to defy logic.

This movie is really all about Tod Slaughter, whose remarkable performance more than makes up for some obvious weaknesses in the plot. Slaughter is, in my opinion, the benchmark by which all movie villains then and now should be judged. If you want to learn how to cackle with evil glee or wring your hands together greedily, just watch Tod Slaughter at work. I really loved the way Sweeney Todd told his customers he was going to "polish them off" just before sending them to their deaths. We see Todd's truly dark nature most clearly in his relationship with his new apprentice Tobias (his eighth apprentice in eight weeks, as the first seven have all disappeared mysteriously). His victims never see what's coming, but the poor child is terrorized by the evil barber. Todd, razor in hand, tells him how bad boys that see or say too much sometimes end up having their tongues cut out and other horrible things done to them. He is the perfect villain.

Tod Slaughter's melodramatic style of acting is different from what you will find in modern movies. Some may be inclined to laugh at his performance as he hams it up. This is actually part of the magic of his performance; he encourages you to laugh along with him all the way to hell. No one enjoys villainy as much as he does himself. If you want to see villainy personified, you simply must see Tod Slaughter's work, and there is no better introduction to his unique genius than Sweeny Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Master character actor Tod Slaughter was a legend years before this, his most popular movie, was filmed. In the 1920's, Slaughter toured through his native England with an acting troop comprised mostly of mental patients Tod procured from various asylums, a la the Marquis De Sade. In the tradition of Grand Guignol, the company performed many ghoulish plays, including this one, which was written by George Dibdin-Pitt. In the 1930's and 40's, while Bela and Boris terrified American audiences, Tod Slaughter raised gooseflesh in Britain, with his rolling eyes and evil smile. This picture, made in 1936, follows Dibdin-Pitt's play (based on an actual series of murders that took place in Victorian England) to the letter. In Stephen Sondheim's glorious musical, the plot is totally different. Here, Sweeney Todd is pure evil, motivated by greed. Times are tough, lots of people are poor and out-of-work. Sweeney Todd has the perfect solution - using his charm and tonsorial skills, Todd lures wealthy, respectable customers into his Fleet Street barber shop, where his mechanical chair dumps them head-first down into the cellar Todd shares with his pal, meat-pie maker Mrs. Lovett. If the fall doesn't do the trick, Sweeney is happy to "polish off" the customer with his razor. Mrs. Lovett then grinds up what's left and uses it to make her famous meat pies, and they split the money from the customer's purse. The plan goes smooth as silk, leaving Sweeney free to work on seducing an aristocrat's daughter in hopes of marrying her for her family's money. The fun begins when Mrs. Lovett suspects that Sweeney is skimming their profits and Sweeney's 12-year-old apprentice Tobias begins to suspect the awful truth behind the meat pies he loves - so Sweeney must find a way to get rid of them both! As gruesome as it sounds, most of the horror takes place off-camera, which is what you'd expect from such an old film. You do get to see the customers dispatched by Sweeney's mechanical chair, and it's a hoot to see Todd crouch over the bodies, unfold his straightrazor and smile like the madman he is. More a dark comedy than a horror film, this movie was banned in the US for several years, thanks to the Production Code. This video version, produced by Rhino Video, is a fairly decent print, veering from a clear image to grainy to really scratched up. The sound quality is good, though inconsistent. With the advent of DVD, it's my sincere hope that all Tod Slaughter's movies are remastered and re-released on disc. He deserves it, and so do all serious movie collectors!

Although not Tod Slaughter's best, it is a good introduction to his melodramatic aproach. King and Slaughter did for Britan what Hammer films did for the U.S. We need more of this way, way over the top entertainment.