
Acting
Tod Slaughter
Born — Died
1885-03-19 — 1956-02-19
Place of birth
Newcastle Upon Tyne, England, UK
Known for
Acting
Credits
28 titles
Tod Slaughter took to the stage in 1905 and made a name for himself as the star villain of numerous Victorian melodramas which he toured around England. Many of these were filmed cheaply in the 30s and 40s by quota-quickie tzar George King. His ham performances are perfectly suited to the material and the best of his films give the impression that if the Victorians could have made features they would have looked like this
Known for
NRA former detective assists Scotland Yard to solve a blackmail case involving murder.
Dark Passage
1952
NRInspector Morley helps to solve the murder of a fake medium.
The Showdown
1952
6.3Darby is a blind girl and Joan is her elder sister. The story revolves around Joan's passion for Yorke - an idle scamp - and her marriage to his uncle, the family benefactor.
She's My Darling
1937
NRLady Sylvia Gray approaches ex-Scotland Yard detective John Morley because she is being blackmailed over compromising letters following an indiscretion. She desperately wants to avoid public scandal because her husband is up for the New Year's Honours list
The Case of the Scarlet Letters
1952
5.8Tod Slaughter goes about the countryside strangling everybody. His evil scheme is to destroy the family who wronged him. He has a secret lab complete with a torture chamber, featured in the films climax. Probably the most maniacal portrayal Tod ever gave.
The Curse of the Wraydons
1946
5.7It is England in the 1830s. London's dockside is teeming with ships and sailors who have made their fortune in foreign lands. Sweeney Todd, a Fleet Street barber, awaits the arrival of men whose first port of call is for a good, close shave. For most it will be the last time they are seen alive. Using a specially designed barber's chair, Sweeney Todd despatches his victims to the cellar below, where he robs them of their new found fortunes and chops their remains into small pieces. Meanwhile, Mrs Lovett is enjoying a roaring trade for her popular penny meat pies.
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
1936
Film credits
1950s · 10 titles
NRA former detective assists Scotland Yard to solve a blackmail case involving murder.
Dark Passage
1952
NRInspector Morley helps to solve the murder of a fake medium.
The Showdown
1952
NRLady Sylvia Gray approaches ex-Scotland Yard detective John Morley because she is being blackmailed over compromising letters following an indiscretion. She desperately wants to avoid public scandal because her husband is up for the New Year's Honours list
The Case of the Scarlet Letters
1952
NRA critical piece of evidence is uncovered in the hunt for Terrence Reilly: a letter listing an address where Reilly had been seen.
Reilly at Bay
1952
NRA young woman named Susan, owner of a rare green-eyed emerald (rumoured to be the left eye of an ancient idol), is kidnapped. The kidnappers demand the emerald in exchange for Susan's safe release.
The Case of the Green Eye
1952
6.0A crook is implicated in blackmail, greed for emeralds and secret formula and murder.
King of the Underworld
1952
9.0A manor caretaker relates the tale of a mad squire, and vanishes.
A Ghost for Sale
1952
6.5A former police detective turned private investigator is approached by two elderly sisters, who say that someone is terrorising them, but it turns out that the man they believe is responsible is long since dead.
Murder at the Grange
1952
10.0Tod Slaughter’s last big screen appearance on camera, delivering a Sweeney Todd monologue.
Puzzle Corner Number Fourteen
1954
BBC live outside broadcast from the Theatre Royal, Stratford, of Tod Slaughter’s production of his melodrama Spring-Heeled Jack.
Spring-Heeled Jack
1950
1940s · 5 titles
5.8Tod Slaughter goes about the countryside strangling everybody. His evil scheme is to destroy the family who wronged him. He has a secret lab complete with a torture chamber, featured in the films climax. Probably the most maniacal portrayal Tod ever gave.
The Curse of the Wraydons
1946
5.8Tod Slaughter goes about the countryside strangling everybody. His evil scheme is to destroy the family who wronged him. He has a secret lab complete with a torture chamber, featured in the films climax. Probably the most maniacal portrayal Tod ever gave.
The Curse of the Wraydons
1946
6.2In this lurid melodrama, Tod Slaughter plays a villain who murders the wealthy Sir Percival Glyde in the gold fields of Australia and assumes his identity in order to inherit Glyde's estate in England. On arriving in England, "Sir Percival" schemes to marry an heiress for her money, and, with the connivance of the cunning Dr. Isidor Fosco, embarks on a killing spree of all who suspect him to be an imposter and would get in the way of his plans to stay Lord of the Manor.
Crimes at the Dark House
1940
5.2Hart and Moore are grave-robbers who provide cadavers to the medical students of 19th-century Edinburgh. When the supply becomes low and demand still great, the two decide to create their own supply, a plan that proves profitable when they stick to vagrants, prostitutes and drunkards. But when they poison likable Jamie, the townsfolk retaliate. NB: This film was originally written to be about Burke and Hare, but after it was completed, the British censors refused to allow its release on the grounds those names themselves were offensive; thus the entire soundtrack was recut so that new names - Hart and Moore - recorded by the film's actors, were cut into the previously recorded lines, replacing the offending "Burke" or "Hare", sentence by sentence.
The Greed of William Hart
1948
10.0A flagrant plug for the trusty safety razor disguised as a comic history of shaving, this witty treat was made by EVH Emmett, whose sardonic tones graced many an educational film in the 1930s and 40s. Jumping from the Bronze Age to Ancient Egypt to the dicey barbers of Victorian England (cue Tod Slaughter hamming it up in "Britain's most fruity drama", Sweeney Todd), the film follows the development and mass production of King Camp Gillette's 1890s invention.
Bothered by a Beard
1945
1930s · 11 titles
6.3Darby is a blind girl and Joan is her elder sister. The story revolves around Joan's passion for Yorke - an idle scamp - and her marriage to his uncle, the family benefactor.
She's My Darling
1937
5.7It is England in the 1830s. London's dockside is teeming with ships and sailors who have made their fortune in foreign lands. Sweeney Todd, a Fleet Street barber, awaits the arrival of men whose first port of call is for a good, close shave. For most it will be the last time they are seen alive. Using a specially designed barber's chair, Sweeney Todd despatches his victims to the cellar below, where he robs them of their new found fortunes and chops their remains into small pieces. Meanwhile, Mrs Lovett is enjoying a roaring trade for her popular penny meat pies.
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
1936
After the Local council he works for decides to replace its horse-drawn services with motor vehicles, one of the drivers spends his savings to buy the horse. Together they search the countryside looking for work, and meeting an assorted group of characters on the way.
Song of the Road
1937
6.0Sexton Blake and Tinker foil criminal plot connected with the Tongs, and master-minded by "famous stamp collector" and millionaire.
Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror
1938
5.7In 1880, the criminal called The Wolf is responsible for a murderous rampage in France. When the Brisson Bank is robbed in Paris and the employee Michelle is murdered, the wealthy Chevalier Lucio del Gardo is the only chance to save the bank. Chevalier proposes to the owner M. de Brisson to deposit a large amount of gold, but in return he would like to marry his daughter Cecile. However, Cecile is in love with the efficient clerk Lucien Cortier that belongs to the lower classes and refuses the engagement. In order to get rid off the rival, Chevalier uses evidences to incriminate Lucien, manipulating the incompetent Parisian chief of police.
The Face at the Window
1939
7.0Short skit in which a "Pathetone" reporter tries to interview Tod Slaughter at home, but finds the fiendish fellow is more interested in "polishing him off".
Tod Slaughter at Home
1936
5.6In 1820s rural England, a young girl is tricked by tales of marriage from a villainous Squire. When she becomes pregnant and disappears, a gipsy lad is blamed.
Maria Marten, or The Murder in the Red Barn
1935
5.6A man is accused of a series of murders that were actually committed by a crazed killer called "The Tiger." He must prove his innocence and catch the murderer.
The Ticket of Leave Man
1937
5.7The film begins in a BBC studio with the 100th edition of "In Town Tonight". Flotsam and Jetsom open with a "topical number". Then there is an interview with a distinguished actor, which dissolves into a performance of one of his famous melodramas about a wicked moneylender etc.
The Crimes of Stephen Hawke
1936
6.1An evil prison administrator cruelly abuses the inmates at his prison, until one day the tables are turned.
It's Never Too Late to Mend
1937
9.0Tod Slaughter introduces himself in brief vignettes of some of his most famous parts (Sweeney Todd, Squire William Corder, etc.)
Pots of Plots
1938

