CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

funkyfry This 1930s version of "Sweeney Todd" features enough grim humor to keep a modern audience involved, but there's little nuance or shading in this tale of horror. Todd in this version is an entirely villainous character; his behavior which has been of more psychological interest in recent versions based mostly on Sondheim's musical is treated in this film as a purely criminal case.As I am myself mostly familiar with this later version, some elements in this one seemed arbitrary or contrived, and furthermore lacking in the irony the follows a late 20th century treatment of this kind of heavy melodrama. Melodrama, for those accustomed to only its casual and rather useless modern adjectival usage, is the classic form of storytelling where 2 perfect lovers are kept apart by some kind of circumstance or villainy that must be overcome, usually (in the formula) by means of a sacrifice on the part of a concerned 3rd party. In the case of this story, the lovers are Johanna (Eve Lister) and Mark (Bruce Seton); the obstacle to their union is the disapproval of her father (D.J. Williams) because Mark is a working man. To gain his fortune, Mark gains passage on the disapproving would-be father in law's boat. This would seem a recipe for disaster, but in this rather optimistic version of the story everyone on the ship loves Mark like a brother.Now comes the really insanely contrived part; when passing around the Cape of Good Hope, Mark's ship is hailed by the servant of a colonist whose home is being attacked by angry natives. Of course being a bunch of heroic merchant seamen, all the guys on the ship want to volunteer to fight the savage natives. These natives are really something to see, right out of a Monogram Jungle Jim movie. Their vocabulary seems to consist entirely of the phrase "la la la la la!", and they are horrible shots with the bow and arrow except when they need to shoot the captain and the colonist so that Mark can inherit a bag of pearls that will win his fortune and enable him to marry Johanna.Given how simple the plot is -- Todd and Mrs. Lovatt (Stella Rho, giving the film's only reasonably subtle performance) kill people and take their money -- it's disappointing how contrived some of these elements are, and how confusing the story gets. I still don't understand why Mark and his bumbling comic relief friend snuck into Todd's house, why Mark sent a note to Johanna, and why he was surprised when Johanna responded to his note by impersonating a servant boy and sneaking into Todd's barber shop. Mark and his friends are eating and drinking (his buddy speculates on what Todd and Lovatt do with the bodies while he munches on a yummy meat pie, one of the film's only hints to that aspect of the story) when they're supposed to be stopping Todd from fleeing. It all seems weird and forced.But then, this whole film really should rise and fall on Tod Slaughter's performance as Sweeney Todd. And I think perhaps a volume could be written on that alone. Slaughter is the very definition of late 19th Century stage acting. His gestures and mannerisms are deliberate and flashy, and even when he pauses for a moment of characterization (like the wonderful pause after dragging his first victim when he absent-mindedly runs his razor across his own face) there's a conscious aspect to the workings of the performance. This is a performance not unlike the one that I imagine made John Balderston famous for "Frankenstein" in the 1920s. And it's a good case study in the old "Grand Guignol" style of acting. Slaughter seems to relish the villainy -- he doesn't make you squirm in discomfort, but rather makes the whole thing a lark. I imagine this guy played Macbeth more than once. As far as the tradition of "horror acting", he is closer to Lugosi and far from Karloff. However the performance becomes irritating because of his screen time. There's only so many times we can hear him laugh villainously before it becomes annoying.What is this film, on the whole? It's a movie that young men in 1936 would have taken their girlfriends to see, so that they could laugh when the ladies complained about it afterwards. It's deliberately shocking and provocative entertainment that is no longer shocking. Once you get past a humorous framing device involving a "modern day" barber (sort of a sub-Langian device), there isn't much actual entertainment here sadly. The direction is uninspired and the storytelling is only as subtle as the censors forced them to be. Slaughter's performance is overly flashy and none of the other characters register. However there are those moments of macabre humor that lift the thing slightly above the banal.

The_Void The story of Sweeny Todd was made famous by Tim Burton in 2007 with his hit film starring Johnny Depp, but before that it was a musical stage play; and there was also this film. Apparently this film was made by a British studio because of some quota law that meant every studio had to make a number of British films; and that's completely obvious, as while the film does feature a fairly engaging performance from the entertainingly named Tod Slaughter; everything else about it feels weak and rushed and this film version does not give justification to the subject material. The plot focuses on the notorious barber Sweeny Todd. He discovers that he can make more money by murdering his customers and stealing their belongings; but the plan goes even deeper when he, along with his next door neighbour; pie maker Mrs Lovatt, realise that the plan can serve a common purpose; as the bodies of the people he kills can be put to good use as meat for her pies. However, things go awry when Todd decides he wants to marry a wealthy man's daughter.I was really looking forward to this film as I do like this story; but Tim Burton's version was ruined for me with the inclusion of a boatload of very annoying songs. I wanted a straight horror version of the story; but while this film fits that bill on paper, it doesn't fit on screen. Tod Slaughter had played the role on stage before and he is the best thing about the film; although he is not matched by the rest of it. The short running time ensures that there just isn't enough time for everything to be included and as such a lot of the film is left by the wayside and it feels like it wants to be over as quickly as possible. There's not much real horror either and director George King doesn't bother giving the film any sort of atmosphere - surprising when it all takes place in some of the most dingy areas in London. To be honest, I found the whole thing rather boring and unfortunately I'm now still looking for a successful adaptation of this story! This version may appeal to big Sweeny Todd fans; although I doubt it and I would recommend giving it a miss.

MARIO GAUCI This is only the second Tod Slaughter vehicle I watched after the superior THE FACE AT THE WINDOW (1939), which I had come across during my tenure in Hollywood; I became even more interested in acquiring it after checking out Tim Burton's excellent 2007 filmization of the Stephen Sondheim musical rendition of the popular "barnstormer".While the plot (which, for what it's worth, is given a contemporary framework in this case) is obviously similar, here, the titular figure is unsurprisingly depicted as an out-and-out villain – which the star (Britain's answer to Bela Lugosi rather than Slaughter's own more versatile countryman Boris Karloff) approaches with trademark hamminess, rubbing his hands together and laughing maniacally when about to indulge in his nefarious deeds. Typically, too, he covets a young girl (daughter of a merchant) in love with a poor boy (a sailor on one of his ships) and isn't above blackmailing her father in order to guarantee the mismatched union! Incidentally, when the film opens, barber Todd (and the female owner of a neighboring pie-shop) is already well into the habit of disposing of his customers – his motive being simply greed rather than revenge as in the later film version. By the way, the fact that the victims end up as ingredients in the woman's 'recipe' (via a rotating chair in his shop which sends them tumbling down her cellar!) is merely intimated here – but it's perfectly understandable for a product from 1936. The climax, then, is a bit contrived as both hero and heroine don disguises in order to expose Todd – however, it all leads to a nicely ironic twist when, amidst the flames which have engulfed his establishment, the demon barber gets to make use himself of the very contraption he had devised! In the end, this is watchable – if essentially crude and stodgy – fare which, however, isn't helped by the annoying practice of excessively cleaning up the soundtrack i.e. virtually all noise apart from the dialogue is bafflingly eliminated…except that the former, undercut as it is by relentless hiss and crackle, comes across as muffled most of the time and, thus, rendering the ensuing digital manipulation all the more blatant!

Michael_Elliott The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936) ** 1/2 (out of 4)A man sits down in a chair for a clean shave and notices a painting hanging up. He asks who it is and the barber tells him the sadistic story of Sweeney Todd (Tod Slaughter). Todd became a legend as a barber who slit the throats of his clients, threw their bodies into a basement and used them for meat pies.The British were extremely strict on what could or couldn't be seen in horror films so one should keep that in mind as they watch THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET. If you're expecting anything bad then you're going to be disappointed and this horror film is rather tame even when compared to what was going on in American horror films of the era.With that said, there's something strange about this film that makes it mildly entertaining. Slaughter has been called Britain's Bela Lugosi, which I've always found as an insult to Lugosi since Slaughter just wasn't in the same league. At the same time, his over-the-top and in-your-face style is something that you don't see too often so that strange performance helps draw you to the character. There's no question that Slaughter could bring a certain madness to the role and that was entertaining.The film is a bit too talky and I'd also argue that it's way too dull in spots. With that said, the scenes in the basement have a nice atmosphere to them and this is where the horror elements work the best. The majority of the running time is more melodrama than anything else but these scenes in the basement are effective for what they are.