{"id":5476,"date":"2009-10-31T15:29:05","date_gmt":"2009-10-31T23:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=5476"},"modified":"2009-10-31T21:16:02","modified_gmt":"2009-11-01T05:16:02","slug":"sweeney-todd-the-demon-barber-of-fleet-street-george-king-1936-u-k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=5476","title":{"rendered":"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (George King, 1936): U.K."},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>. Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"200px-The_Demon_Barber_Of_Fleet_Street\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A man enters a barber shop in 1930’s England and as he is prepped for shaving, the barber tells the man a frightening story of Sweeney Todd:\u00a0 The Demon Barber of Fleet Street<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sweeney Todd is a vile and greedy barber, played deliciously to the hilt by none other than Tod Slaughter.\u00a0 He seeks out his best customers on the docks as the tall ships come into port.\u00a0 The men who have been out at sea and return home with their pockets full and their face grisly are easy targets for Sweeney, who promises to give them “a good polishing off” before they meet up with their sweethearts.<\/p>\n

Once inside, the customer is\u00a0encouraged to sit in the\u00a0best barber\u00a0chair.\u00a0 When it is determined exactly what goods\u00a0Sweeney’s prey carries with him, a secret lever is pulled from behind a curtain, dropping the victim down (head first) into the cellar below.\u00a0 If the fall doesn’t break his neck,\u00a0 it’s up to the demon barber to slit the man’s throat and rob him of his goods.<\/p>\n

Sweeney is not without a heart, as he adopts Tobias Ragg a street urchin, \u00a0to train as a\u00a0barber’s apprentice.\u00a0\u00a0 Sweeney generously hands him a penny to buy a meat pie from the bake shop next door, and then threatens to cut out his tongue if Tobias talks too much about what he sees.<\/p>\n

Unbeknownst to Tobias, Sweeney is in cahoots with the merchant of the bake shop, Mrs. Lovett, and oblivious to the fact that the scrumptious meat pies are made from the\u00a0 remains of the very same\u00a0victims of Sweeney’s barber shop.<\/p>\n

There is also a damsel in distress, her sweetheart (a potential victim), and the damsel’s father who accepts Sweeney’s ill-gotten money in exchange for a percentage of his business.<\/p>\n

Tod Slaughter was a British actor who played various parts on the English stage before finding his niche as the evil villain in several films.\u00a0 His Cheshire Cat grin is wonderful\u00a0as he\u00a0greedily wrings his hands and proclaims “the throats of my razor, so many have I polished off.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

This film will make you think twice before consuming any meat pies!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy. Viewed on DVD. A man enters a barber shop in 1930’s England and as he is prepped for shaving, the barber tells the man a frightening story of Sweeney Todd:\u00a0 The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Sweeney Todd is a vile and greedy barber, played deliciously to the hilt by none […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}