Does anyone ever remember a British TV showing of this film? It would seem to be a mostly forgotten movie but from what I understand Tod Slaughter's stage interpretation of Sweeney was something of a sensation of the time.
shareI saw it at the NFT
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Thanks for that!
shareThis film has recently come out on DVD in the U.K, to cash in on the publicity surrounding the Tim Burton film. You can get it from HMV for a fiver.
share"Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street" has been released recently in GB by Orion to cash on the success of Tim Burton's film, it's true, but in fact it was also released on DVD by the same company BEFORE, along with two other Tod Slaughter vehicles, "Maria Marten, or The Murder in the Red Barn", and "Crimes at the Dark House". Others are announced by Orion (in their "Best of British" collection) for this year.
ALL the Tod Slaughter movies have been shown on British TV many times. My older recordings are almost 20 years old (when the movies were shown on Channel Four) but the same channel re-broadcast them often. Before that, in the 1950's, BBC showed some of them. Even recently, BBC-TV programmed (twice) the ultra-rare featurette "Murder at the Grange" (1952, directed by Victor M. Gover).
The British DVDs are by far the best versions of these films, being uncut (the Alpha Video DVDs of "Murder in the Red Barn" and "Horror Maniacs / The Greed of William Hart" are cut to ribbons). Moreover, they are LEGITIMATE releases, NONE of the Tod Slaughter movies being in "public domain" in Europe.
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