Edgar Wallece's The Terror

This fast-paced crime caper – adapted from an Edgar Wallace play - is a wonderful mix of wry humour, crime, murder, intrigue, madness, and to top it off, ghostly goings-on!

‘Soapy’ Marks (the unforgettable Alastair Sim) and Joe Connor (Henry Oscar) are sentenced to ten years in Dartmoor prison, after their associate – a criminal mastermind only known as The Terror – double-crossed them following an audacious bullion robbery.
So it’s understandable that upon their release, Soapy and Joe have but one thing on the mind: revenge! Which brings them to Monk’s Hall Priory, a guesthouse with a reputation of being haunted by the ghost of hooded monk. Sounds like a guesthouse I’d like to spend a weekend there myself.

Joe Connor is the first to arrive, and in true Edgar Wallace style, we are introduced to an array of characters, starting with owner Colonel Redmayne (Arthur Wontner) and his attractive daughter Mary (Linden Travers), their superstitious servants – lead by deadpan butler Hawkins (Stanley Lathbury), the eccentric Mrs. Elvery (Iris Hoey) and her bubbly daughter Veronica (Lesley Wareing), and the superb Wilfrid Lawson in the most demanding role of the lot.

There are gags and frights a-plenty, especially when it emerges that it’s not only Soapy and Joe who are hell-bent on carrying out revenge on The Terror, but a strange priest who seems to have appeared from nowhere… It gets even more complicated (and also romantic…) when Superintendent Hallick, Detective Lewis, and Inspector Dobie arrive at the guesthouse – eager to finally capture the man who led them a merry dance for the past ten years!

Walter Harvey’s atmospheric cinematography adds much to the general feeling of suspense in this 1938 b/w movie, and as for the finale – it’s almost pure Grand Guignol (and certainly inspired by The Phantom Of The Opera!).

The Terror is featured here in a barnd-new transfer from original film elements and in its as-exhibited theatrical aspect ratio. The DVD contains no bonus material.