00:06Available on YouTube, 1946's Strangler of the Swamp is German director Frank Visbar's remake of his own Fireman Maria made in his home country in 1936.
00:26That's also available on YouTube but it's not the best print nor does it seem to be complete so we're looking at this version made for Poverty Row Studio PRC after Visbar came to America.
00:39The story is a simple one. Following the lynching of an innocent man, people keep showing up dead in mysterious and similar ways.
00:48Have you forgotten Bill Jenkins who was thrown from his horse and choked to death by the rain?
00:53And locals believe that the ghost of the hanged man haunts the swamp.
00:58The ghost's face may be indistinct but cult film fans will recognise the voice of Ming the Merciless himself, Charles Middleton.
01:06From my grave in the swamp, never the hardened soul of a cursed one or filled with anguish to the brim, I appear.
01:14From here the plot is pretty predictable but enlivened by creepy, if creaky, set pieces.
01:22And the ever-present atmosphere.
01:25Visbar overcoming the limitations of PRC's tiny studio, shooting the same cramped set from different angles.
01:33Also raising this above the average is the character of Maria, returning home after the death of her father to run the ferry.
01:40Not a job for a woman.
01:42You've got to give up this ferry business.
01:44I like my job Chris, what else could I do?
01:47Maria, played by Rosemary Laplanche, is a satisfyingly strong heroine, knocking back the local drunks.
01:54Say, you should marry, have a nice home.
01:58I'm happy as I am.
02:00Running towards danger.
02:02Arrgh!
02:06And not screaming when she finds it.
02:08Arrgh!
02:12Nor even when she comes face to face with the strangler.
02:17She's the lead and unlike many similar heroines of the era, she retains this independence right to the end.
02:24I can save her.
02:26Her love interest, incidentally, and he is pretty incidental, is played by Blake Edwards,
02:31before he turned to direction and long before the Pink Panther brought him into the big time.
02:37I don't believe in the supernatural.
02:39That this film is remembered at all is mostly due to historian William K Everson,
02:44who included it in his book Classics of the Horror Film.
02:48But even he is quick to stress that this is not an unsung masterpiece.
02:53It's one of the best films PRC produced, but that's not saying much from the studio that brought you The Devil Bat.
03:03However well this bar manages it, you're always aware of the cheapness.
03:07Run till your heart bursts.
03:11The love story is just tedious.
03:13Are you in love with her Chris?
03:16And when the narrative moves from the swamp to talky interiors,
03:20it becomes laboured, as if struggling to reach its brisk 59 minute run time.
03:25I can't eat, I can't sleep, I just wait for the strangler to get us like he got Joseph.
03:31Everson acknowledged that in a book called Classics of Horror Film,
03:35he was including something that was far from a classic,
03:38but he wanted to draw attention to it because both Strangler of the Swamp and Farmer Maria
03:43have been largely ignored and that's at least part of the reason we're reviewing it.
03:49The other reason is that, for all its faults and a real lull in the mid-section,
03:55it's an enjoyable little thriller and a testament to what a good director can do,
04:00even in straightened circumstances.
04:05Thanks for watching.
04:06Have you seen Strangler of the Swamp and if so, what did you think of it?
04:10What other forgotten B-movies deserve a leg up?
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