THE BRIGHTON STRANGLER and I have an interesting history together. I first saw the movie back in 1962 when I was 10 years old. I was home from school sick and it was shown on a local TV station. Back in those days, the morning news stopped at 9am and the game shows didn’t begin until 11. The 2 hours between them were usually filled by old movies from the 1930s and 40s. STRANGLER was made in 1945 and tells the story of a stage actor, who suffers a head injury during the London Blitz. As a result he believes he is the title character that he was playing on stage and he sets out for Brighton to murder their Mayor and Chief Police Inspector which is what the play had him do.
I was captivated from the very first and watched the whole movie from beginning to end without ever getting up from my bed. My TV was a 1952 General Electric model with a tiny 12″ screen but it served me well for many years. STRANGLER was meant to be contemporary but was almost 20 years old by the time I first saw it. Even at 10 I was able to put myself into the movies I was watching like a form of teleportation. I believed myself to be in wartime London yet watching the proceedings from afar. I knew the lead character wasn’t inherently evil and that he wasn’t fully responsible for his actions and this made me feel sorry for him. The poignant ending made me tear up.
I quickly forgot THE BRIGHTON STRANGLER but it must have remained beneath the surface. 5 years later I wanted to do drama and began appearing in high school plays which led to a 20 year career in Southeastern regional theater. After that I became a classical music announcer for a public radio station, a movie reviewer for a local Arts periodical and eventually a teacher of film courses for the local chapter of OLLI (Osher Life Learning Institute) . This all lasted for 37 years until my retirement in 2020 due to COVID. However whenever I saw the STRANGLER male lead, a British born actor named John Loder, I was always reminded of the film yet it became virtually impossible to see.
Loder had an interesting and varied career. He was captured during World War I and decided to remain in Germany after the war. He started out in German silent movies before returning to England and then eventually came to America in the late 1920s. When sound came in, his smooth English voice got him parts in many films. They were mostly B movies but he did make a few major ones (HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY, NOW VOYAGER). STRANGLER was made at RKO in 1945 using the same behind the scenes technical team that produced the Val Lewton thrillers and it shows. He was married to Hedy Lamar from 1943-47, retired to an Argentinian cattle ranch in the late 1950s, returned to England where he died in 1988 at the age of 90.
The female lead was another British born performer, the actress June Duprez. She is best remembered for playing the Princess in the 1940 Arabian Nights fantasy THE THIEF OF BAGDAD which is what brought her to America. However her career never took off and after living in Rome for many years she returned to England where she died in 1984. Several B movie British character actors (Gilbert Emery, Miles Mander, Ian Wolfe) were also in the movie which gave it a truly English feel and flavor. The movie’s director, Max Nosseck, was a refugee from Nazi Germany. He made one other film of note which was DILLINGER (also 1945). STRANGLER is a classic example of the sum total being greater than the parts.
After seeing THE BRIGHTON STRANGLER in 1962, I didn’t fully see it again until this year (2025), That’s a total of 63 years. Why so long? Availability. After a brief appearance on VHS along with another obscure RKO thriller BEFORE DAWN (1933), it completely disappeared. It has never been released on digital home video in America although it cropped up on Turner Classic Movies from time to time. When I did get to see it not long ago, it was on YouTube and it brought everything back along with an adult’s and a critic’s perspective. I hope it gets released on Blu-ray someday as I would love to have a physical copy that features commentary and has lots of extras.
The Capsule Critic 