Wilkie Collin's novel "The Woman in White" has been the subject of two films and an Andrew Lloyd Webber stage musical that recently had a brief run on Broadway. It is basically a story of scandal and fraud amongst Europe's upper crust. This is the first film version, made in England during a period that many poverty row studios were making abridged versions of classic novels. Some of these, such as a British version of "Scrooge", are actually pretty good, but most of them, like "Jane Eyre", "Oliver Twist", and "The Scarlet Letter" come off as abridged versions that barely attempt to give any sort of character development. In the case of "The Woman in White", this 69 minute film goes into a little more depth than the ones listed above, but rather than being presented as a representation of the Gothic novel it was based on, it is more of a horror film made to show off the hamminess of its leading man, Tod Slaughter.
As the fake Count Percival Glyde, Slaughter takes over the estate of the man he is seen brutally murdering in the first scene of the film. Slaughter sneers and laughs as he goes through his horrific actions to keep control of the status he has achieved through nefarious means. Slaughter is so over the top that he makes Charles Laughton seem subtle in comparison. His acting style is so close to camp that you can't help but laugh every time he commits a horrible crime. In the four films that I have seen of his so far, I felt that his films seem like they were meant for the silent era. His villains all seem so one dimensional of the mustache twirling school of acting. Even Bela Lugosi in his Monogram cheapies showed some underlying motivations for his criminal actions, yet Slaughter's acting is so silly you'd think you were watching a live version of cartoon characters Snidely Whiplash or Boris Badinoff.
In that sense, these films are fun to watch because they are so delightfully bad, like an old silent Pearl White serial or an early 20th century stage melodrama. I wonder if Lugosi and Karloff watched these films and toned down their performances based on their reactions to his performance. It is also interesting to note that Slaughter's looks were not transfered over into the recent musical version to his character, but to Michael Crawford's (in London) and Michael Ball's (both in London and on Broadway) character of the comic villain Dr. Fosco (played here by Hay Petrie).
I always thought that every Tod Slaughter movie should include that line, "You shall be a bride. A bride of death!". He first used that line on screen in "Murder in the Red Barn" and repeats it here again to a buxom parlor maid. It's sort of like Mel Brooks' constant use of the lines, "Walk this way" and "It's good to be the king!". No Tod Slaughter movie should be complete without it.
In the 1940's British cinema made many technical strides that made some of their films seem almost modern in comparison to American films of that era, but many of the films made there in the 1930's seem quite creaky when compared to those made just a few years later. The 1948 Warner Brothers version had more of a Gothic style to its storytelling (and a much higher budget and well known cast), and the musical's filmed background gave the impression that the character's lives were as flat as the setting.
It is interesting to have seen this story done by three different perspectives that I wonder how it would work as a film today. I had no idea that the British version of "The Woman in White" had even been made until I purchased it on DVD as part of my ongoing film study. Interesting to note that this is one of two Tod Slaughter films made that were later turned into musicals (the other is "Sweeney Todd", which a revival of ironically opened around the same time as "The Woman in White").
As the fake Count Percival Glyde, Slaughter takes over the estate of the man he is seen brutally murdering in the first scene of the film. Slaughter sneers and laughs as he goes through his horrific actions to keep control of the status he has achieved through nefarious means. Slaughter is so over the top that he makes Charles Laughton seem subtle in comparison. His acting style is so close to camp that you can't help but laugh every time he commits a horrible crime. In the four films that I have seen of his so far, I felt that his films seem like they were meant for the silent era. His villains all seem so one dimensional of the mustache twirling school of acting. Even Bela Lugosi in his Monogram cheapies showed some underlying motivations for his criminal actions, yet Slaughter's acting is so silly you'd think you were watching a live version of cartoon characters Snidely Whiplash or Boris Badinoff.
In that sense, these films are fun to watch because they are so delightfully bad, like an old silent Pearl White serial or an early 20th century stage melodrama. I wonder if Lugosi and Karloff watched these films and toned down their performances based on their reactions to his performance. It is also interesting to note that Slaughter's looks were not transfered over into the recent musical version to his character, but to Michael Crawford's (in London) and Michael Ball's (both in London and on Broadway) character of the comic villain Dr. Fosco (played here by Hay Petrie).
I always thought that every Tod Slaughter movie should include that line, "You shall be a bride. A bride of death!". He first used that line on screen in "Murder in the Red Barn" and repeats it here again to a buxom parlor maid. It's sort of like Mel Brooks' constant use of the lines, "Walk this way" and "It's good to be the king!". No Tod Slaughter movie should be complete without it.
In the 1940's British cinema made many technical strides that made some of their films seem almost modern in comparison to American films of that era, but many of the films made there in the 1930's seem quite creaky when compared to those made just a few years later. The 1948 Warner Brothers version had more of a Gothic style to its storytelling (and a much higher budget and well known cast), and the musical's filmed background gave the impression that the character's lives were as flat as the setting.
It is interesting to have seen this story done by three different perspectives that I wonder how it would work as a film today. I had no idea that the British version of "The Woman in White" had even been made until I purchased it on DVD as part of my ongoing film study. Interesting to note that this is one of two Tod Slaughter films made that were later turned into musicals (the other is "Sweeney Todd", which a revival of ironically opened around the same time as "The Woman in White").