Chase_Witherspoon Callous thief and murderer kills the real Sir Percival Glyde whose gone bush down under for more than a decade, then returns to England impersonating his victim to inherit the vast estate. With a litany of perjury to maintain, things soon begin to unravel for the "false" Sir Percival, as his lechery and lies quickly catch-up leading to ever more desperate and depraved crimes.Tod Slaughter is suitably nasty as the greedy deviant whose unsophisticated ruse barely adheres through a mutually beneficial alliance with crooked Doctor (Petrie) who catches on to the deceit early in the piece, then becomes complicit through escalating blackmail. The sheer abhorrence of the imposter's crimes is breathtaking for a film made in 1940, and he surely ranks as one of the most unconscionable villains of that decade (his dismissive immorality is right up there with Richard Widmark's giggling killer from "Kiss of Death"). His vulgar disposal of one of the victims in particular really is quite shocking when you consider the motive.Memorable dialogue ("double cross me and I'll feed your entrails to the pigs") and plot twists (the apparently illegitimate daughter who's a basket case, and just so happens to be a dobbleganger for Sir Percival's reluctant wife), keep the momentum constant, and combined with Slaughter's wicked characterisation, it's worth hanging in just to anticipate his comeuppance.

drystyx All I can say is LOL. This was a riot.The central character in this mystery is a rotten egg from the word go. Instead of following a protagonist, we follow a horrific evil, but the story is told in such a way that we can follow with a sort of Monty Python style of black humor in his escapades, fully aware that it would take a miracle for him to pull off his charade as he murders a man and assumes his identity.This impostor can best be described in three words and I quote: stink, stank, stunk. In a sort of deranged Long John Silver style, he kills and kills and lies his way through the story to the end.The only real negative contrivance is the "look alike", which you'll find, but that does help set up an interesting bit. The rescue from the asylum didn't make much sense, as it would've been easier to just get witnesses and come back to expose the fraud who put the lookalike there. (I think I said this in such a way that it isn't a spoiler) But the movie is a good ride.

BaronBl00d The Woman in White, a great novel penned by Wilkie Collins, serves as the backbone for this Reader's Digest version of the novel adapted by Edward Dryhurst and produced/directed by Tod Slaughter regular George King. Slaughter also served as a producer, and this films has higher production values than most of Slaughter/King's previous efforts. While I enjoy the movie vastly, I am hesitant to call it the best of Slaughter's work. Give me The Face at the Window or even better Murder in the Red Barn where Slaughter leers more in one movie than twelve men could in twelve movies! Notwithstanding that this film is quite good as Slaughter opens the film drilling a nail/spike into a sleeping man's head in the Australian outback and assumes his identity going to England as the new lord of the manor. Slaughter immediately takes note of the young blonde maid who he raise up to chambermaid. With Slaughter's eyes rolling, his heavy-handed gesturing, and his tone and inflection, you know exactly what his intentions are at every moment. I know of no other actor who acts this way and could get away with acting this way. Slaughter does it so effortlessly, and let's be honest - if you are watching this film it is more than likely to see him. He is larger than life. The thickest slice of ham I have ever seen in films. The adaptation of Collin's novel has many shortcomings but stays surprisingly faithful to the main parts. The direction of King is adequate and the other performers are really rather good. Slaughter dispatches of people with glee and has some wonderful scenes with Hay Petrie as Isidor Fosco - a scoundrel of a different stripe so to say. Leering, drowning, hackling maniacally all are part of the Tod Slaughter package here. If you still have not seen one of his films, this one is as good as any to begin seeing what all the fuss - deserved and still not completed in any way - is about regarding Tod Slaughter.

Paul Petroskey This movie is pretty darn delightful, right from the first scene where Mr. Tod Slaughter is seen hammering a spike into an unsuspectingly asleep man's head! He then impersonates the man, gaining admittance into the man's estate that had just been willed to him. You get to hear Tod say, "I'll feed your entrails to the pigs!"!! Don't pass up a chance to see it.