The Brighton Strangler

Another of the movies that had been sitting on my DVR for quite some time was The Brighton Strangler. Recently, I finally got around to watching it.

The movie was released in the US in May, 1945, just after the war in Europe ended, so was clearly filmed and set during the war. It's London on New Year's Eve, and a man is just about to strangle a woman to death before being shot by the police. The curtain comes down, which means not that it's the end of our movie, but the opening scene is actually of a play about a strangler in Brighton. That strangler, Edward Grey, is played by a man named Reginald Parker (John Loder). It's getting close to Christmas, and Parker has already decided he's tired of playing this character. So his fiancée Dorothy Kent (Rose Hobart) is writing a new play for him before she goes off to Canterbury for Christmas, with him to follow after closing night.

However, on closing night, after one final successful performance, there's another round of the Blitz. Parker isn't able to make it to a bomb shelter before the bombs start falling and, wouldn't you know it, but one of the bombs hits the theater. Now all of this is 15-20 minutes in, so we know he's not going to be killed. Instead, he's only concussed. On coming to, he sees that he has a baggage claim check in his overcoat pocket, since his baggage was sent ahead to the train station for him to pick up before getting his ticket to Canterbury.

Unfortunately, the concussion has screwed with his memory. He picks up the baggage, but before being able to get his ticket, he overhears a snippet of a conversation between a British WAC, April Manby (June Duprez), and the American flyboy she's eloped with, Bob Carson (Michael St. Angel). She's going home for leave without him because her parents aren't going to be excited about her marrying an aviator. More importantely, she mentions going home to Brighton, which jogs Parker's memory. Except that it jogs his memory of the play, so he buys a ticket to Brighton and gets in the same car as April.

April sees that Parker has been injured, so tends to the injury and asks him his name... and he gives the name Edward Grey, going to Brighton because he used to have family there. April takes pity on him and offers to invite him for Christmas dinner which is also convenient for her since she can't really bring her husband. But Parker-as-Grey gets to Brighton, and the first thing he thinks of doing the next day is to find the barrister who screwed up Grey's trial, which is what led to Grey's becoming a strangler in the play Parker had starred in. Clearly a case of life imitating art.

To be honest, the premise in The Brighton Strangler is a bit contrived, but this is only a B movie. You're not supposed to take it that seriously. And for what it does, it succeeds fairly well once it gets past a slow section in the middle of the movie. One other minor issue that is has is that it has to deal with the Production Code, so you wonder how it's going to get to a satisfying ending considering that the Parker character has on the one hand clearly committed murder, while on the other hand not being of sound mind or body. It's not something you'll evrer consider great, but I think it would certainly have entertained audiences back in the day as the lower bill on a movie night.