The Haunted Strangler

The Haunted Strangler is a 1958 film about a researcher investigating a notorious serial killer hanged twenty years earlier who seemingly becomes possessed by the long dead strangler.

Directed by Robert Day. Written by John Croydon and Jan Read, based on Read's short story "Stranglehold."

Their wild beauty marked them for death by . . . The Haunted Strangler  (taglines)

James Rankin

• You mean he killed while in some sort of trance?

• I'm sorry, Barbara, but a man must do the work in which he believes!

Dialogue

Supt. Burk: I don't know why you social reformers always want to play detective to prove your theories.

James Rankin: Because you detectives always leave such gaps in your investigations.

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Supt. Burk: I've been back over the records, and given you at least a dozen cases -- why on Earth choose this one?

James Rankin: It's the one clear case that'll prove my point! If Styles had had the money to buy an adequate defense, he never would have hanged.

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Barbara Rankin: How much longer are are these investigations going on?

James Rankin: Oh, I'm afraid the end isn't quite in sight, Barbara.

Barbara Rankin: But it's all past. That man was dead and buried 20 years ago. Let him rest.

James Rankin: I know I can't bring Styles back from the dead, but one could force a change in the legal system so that a poor man would have a lawyer to defend him. Styles was a typical case, and there'll be plenty of others...

Taglines

• Their wild beauty marked them for death by . . . The Haunted Strangler
• Karloff-KING OF MONSTERS-In His New Picture of 1,000 Horrors!
• KING OF THE MONSTERS! KARLOFF IN HIS NEW HORROR HIT!

Cast

• Boris Karloff — James Rankin
• Jean Kent — Cora Seth
• Elizabeth Allan — Barbara Rankin
• Anthony Dawson — Superintendent Burk
• Vera Day — Pearl
• Tim Turner — Dr. Kenneth McColl
• Diane Aubrey — Lily Rankin
• Max Brimmell — Newgate Prison Turnkey
• Leslie Perrins — Newgate Prison Governor
• Jessica Cairns — Asylum Maid
• Dorothy Gordon — Hannah
• Desmond Roberts — Dr. Johnson
• Michael Atkinson — Edward Style
• Peggy Anne Clifford — Kate

External links

• The Haunted Strangler quotes at the Internet Movie Database