Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street – 1936 | 65 mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Splendid vintage melodrama based on the mythical 1800’s urban legend of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street which first appeared in the cheap Penny Dreadful’s. Todd Slaughter produces his quintessential theatrical performance with predictable relish – a role Slaughter played on stage over 4000 times on stage.

Told in flashback, we first meet the mad barber Sweeney Todd (Tod Slaughter) casting a romantic eye on Johanna Oakley (Eve Lister), the beautiful daughter of a business partner whom he is threatening to ruin financially. She, however, is in love with a handsome seaman Mark Ingerstreet (Bruce Seton) who has boarded the Golden Hope and embarked on a trip to earn the money he will need to wed her.

Todd makes additional money by picking the pockets of unsuspecting wealthy customers or slitting their throats slit in the barber chair. When a victim is being readied, Todd sends his young apprentice Tobias (John Singer) next door to buy a penny pie from his accomplice, Mrs. Lovatt (Stella Rho), grinds the victims into the meat pies she sells in her pastry shop. When Mark returns from his sea voyage a wealthy man to his bride-to-be, he first stops for a shave at Sweeney’s barber shop. The demented barber sharpens his razor to make the young man his next victim!