Strangler of the Swamp (1946)

Perfectly adorable

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

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.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

An innocent man had vowed revenge on the lynch mob who strung him up and two generations of men have been dying along the bayou in mysterious ways ever since. The latest is the village ferryman whose granddaughter takes over his scow and falls for a young man whose father was also involved in the tragedy. Legend has it that the curse can be lifted if a descendant offers their life to the spectre and when it comes for the girl's beau, well... German director Frank Wisbar re-worked his Reich film FAHRMANN MARIA for PRC and, like fellow émigré Edgar G. Ulmer, he knew how to make an atmospheric film on a shoestring budget. Set almost entirely in a fog- enshrouded swamp of gnarled trees and murky waters, the tale visually resembles it's predecessor but the theme has changed from a "love and death" fable to revenge from beyond the grave. In the original, Death itself had come to take Maria's lover but in the re-make, it's a vengeful ghost. Even so, both gals bargain for the life of their man. B-movie bad guy Charles Middleton ("Ming The Merciless") was the vengeful cadaver in the mist and Maria was played by "Miss America 1941" Rosemary La Planche. Although Maria was the real hero, future producer/director Blake Edwards, of all people, played "the hero" and he wasn't a bad-looking guy. As far as Poverty Row chills go, STRANGLER is a cut above the rest thanks to an imaginative director.

Poverty Row cheapie that's much better than its modest production would suggest. There's been a series of murders by strangulation in the swamp. The superstitious locals believe it's the ghost of an innocent man they hanged seeking revenge. The hanged man's granddaughter shows up, looking to take over her grandfather's ferry business. She soon falls in love with a young man who happens to be the son of one of her grandfather's killers. Gramps won't like that!Lots of foggy atmosphere, a nice cast, and some neat special effects elevate this PRC chiller above most of the other Poverty Row films of the time. The cast includes vets Robert Barratt and Charles Middleton. Future director Blake Edwards and former Miss America Rosemary LaPlanche play the young lovers. Some genuinely creepy moments in this one. Probably the best PRC film I've seen.

This spooky horror story comes to us courtesy of PRC studios, so we know right off the bat we're in for a classic of its kind. A ferryman was hastily hanged by a village years ago. Now he seems to haunt the villagers, particularly the man whose testimony falsely convicted him -- Old Ferryman Douglas. The ferry is a small boat that must be pulled by hand across a steamy creek. Its isolated location has everyone frightened of the neighborhood. Old Douglas, though, despite feeling a little guilty at his perjured testimony, pooh poohs the story of the swamp strangler as just so much superstition.He shouldn't have been so off handed about the whole thing because one night he runs into a shadowy figure in the murk and is found dead -- choked to death by a noose.At first, watching this inexpensive tale unfold, I figured it for one of those stories, something like "Sherlock Holmes and the Scarlet Claw," in which someone is imitating a ghost in order to kill people for prosaic reasons. But then it gets complicated. Old Douglas may have been dealing with an hallucination but this figure keeps on killing or assaulting people even when everyone in the film seems to be elsewhere. Every once in a while, the spector came whiffling through the tulgey wood, and burbled as it came!Old Douglas's pretty granddaughter, Rosemary La Planche, shows up and takes over the operation of the ferry and she falls in love with -- are you ready for this? -- Blake Edwards. Yes, THE Blake Edwards, who was wise to switch to direction later on because he had a good sense of humor and, if nothing else, it gave him access into the kind of inner circle in which you get to marry Julie Andrews. Edwards is attacked by the strangler too, for reasons I couldn't figure out because, after all, he was a young man recently returned to the village and who had had nothing to do with the mistaken hanging of the strangler.The plot is confusing and boring. The stage set was the size of a walk-in closet. But the dialog has one or two memorable lines. "Chris ran away when he was at the age when boys think that being a man means being alone." Something like that. I also give the story bonus points for making good use of elderly people, especially old ladies. The characters fit, because they provide a nifty contrast with the joie de vivre of the youngsters when they begin to show up.I understand that this film is one of the few to emerge from PRC with something like a respectable reputation. I don't know why. It's gloomy and most unimaginative.

Although I have not seen this film for many years, I remember it's rich atmosphere quite well. I saw it in a class taught by an eminent film historian and collector, the late William K. Everson, who showed it as an example of movies made with only one set.It's also got a richer-than-usual part for Charles Middleton, a character-actor (mostly remembered as Ming the Merciless in FLASH GORDON) with a wonderful presence.