Prior to Snidely Whiplash and Dick Dasterdly, there was Tod Slaughter, the mustache twirling, snickering Englishman who slit throats, shot young ladies whose virginity he stole and buried them in a barn, strangled innocent children, hammered spikes into brains, and here, is a back breaker. At least those cartoon villains didn't get to do that; They were too concerned with tying the heroine to the tracks or stealing state secrets (or a bag of loot) and too insipid to really get away with their crimes. With Tod Slaughter, we know from the moment he appears on the screen that he is the guilty party, and here, he's nasty from the start, breaking the back of a chunky rich kid who demands that he get out of their garden. More enemies follow suit, and in one of the creepiest scenes in a Slaughter film, he's confronted by the alleged ghost of one of his victims, sitting up in the morgue, and scarring the crap out of him. But once his crimes are exposed, he's sent out on the lam, to run through the countryside with the threat of being hunted, only because the person who exposed him is in love with Slaughter's daughter, and doesn't want to see her hurt.In a Slaughter film, the supporting cast never really matters. These barn stormers focused on Slaughter's nefarious laugh coming either before he kills somebody brutally, as he confronts them with their impending doom, and usually after the crime has been committed. Subtlety is never utilized in a Slaughter film, even if he does appear to genuinely be in love with the young heroine or devoted to a daughter, as he seems to be here. These films all have a formula: Introduce Slaughter as the culprit of a crime spree, have him commit a few of those crimes to give the viewer some chills, expose himself (usually by someone he's trying to frame) and the ultimate pay-off which always follows a mad scene. Slaughter gives his all to these types of roles, hysterically over the top. His films, usually directed by independent producer George King, look cheap, and the prints available aren't usually the best. The creakiness of those prints, though, is what makes him stand the test of time, and if his acting method is long dated, the films are fun to watch for their formula, the shear audacity of their ridiculousness, and cartoon like characterizations. When an actor makes Karloff and Lugosi look subtle, that's enough to warrant their place in the camp hall of fame, and if the films themselves are hardly classics, they are a heck of a lot of fun!

The Crimes of Stephen Hawke (1936) ** 1/2 (out of 4)London is under a crippling terror as people are being crushed to death by a man known as The Spinebreaker (Tod Slaughter).THE CRIMES OF STEPHEN HAWKE starts out unlike any other movie that I can remember. It starts off at a radio station where we basically get a radio broadcast for the first seven or eight minutes and then we finally get to the main story. In a rather shocking manor, it starts off with a child being murdered.This here was the third film Slaughter made following THE MURDER IN THE RED BARN and THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET. Britain had pretty much put a ban on American horror movies and these British films had to walk a careful line. With that said, this here makes the murder of a child all the more shocking. There are some rather graphic and violent deaths for the era, although they aren't bloody or gory. The sound effects and screams of the people being crushed are certainly the highlight of the picture.As was often the case with these films, the main reason people watch them today is for the over-the-top and at times wacky performance by Slaughter. I don't know how to describe him other than saying he was like John Barrymore had he gone insane and had a mental breakdown to the point where he was a raving dog. Once again he's all over the place here and he really makes himself stand apart from the other actors. The other actors are good but they just can't overtake the all-mighty Slaughter.As far as the film goes, it's certainly a bit better than the star's previous two films and a strong argument could be made that this here is about as entertaining as his horror pictures got.

I'll admit it - I quickly became a Tod Slaughter fan. I *think* I first saw him as a kid but I can't really recall - I know about 3 years ago I started becoming very familiar with him and quickly became a fan. Like most people, I watch Tod Slaughter films for Tod Slaughter's performances. He's quite good - very theatrical and lively on film so he makes an otherwise mediocre film entertaining.Now this film is more than just Tod Slaughter being an entertaining, it's actually a pretty good story on top of it. One of Slaughter's best films.I love the atmosphere in this one. It's very much of a Victorian Gothic film - it's no masterpiece but it's one that really enjoyed watching.9/10

I actually don't like this film as much as a score of "7" would seem to indicate, but Tod Slaughter is such a gleefully malevolent presence in the film that it's worth watching just to see him camp it up.I'm not as much a film history buff as some of the distinguished commentators here, but it's obvious that this movie was made when film hadn't really come up with its own language yet, since the opening sequence is a live presentation of a radio show (!) featuring "Flotsam and Jetsam". They're reasonably clever and amusing, but the film basically stands stock still for at least 5 minutes while they go on and on with a satirical musical take on various topics of the day (kind of like a 1930's British Mark Russell).Finally the story proper starts with Tod Slaughter himself taking the microphone and narrating a tale in which he (as "Steven Hawke") plays a demented serial killers who lends people money by day and breaks their spines at night, all to furnish a nest egg for his beloved daughter.The plot itself is a drunken walk, a penny dreadful melodrama, with a cast of stock actors and actresses delivering their lines as best they can while Slaughter does his bit. And I'll given him this - the guy never lets up. He's "on" every instant he's in front of the camera, and it's obvious he's enjoying himself. Meanwhile, the hero (who apparently went on to greater things) woos the bad guy's daughter so they can get into a big plastic hassle about their thwarted love when he discovers that Hawke/Slaughter killed his father.I have to admit - I did like the ending, where Hawke, perched on a balcony, keeps half a dozen men at bay, ranting and raving and hurling bricks at anyone who dares come through the balcony door, until he slips on the edge and falls to his (eventual) death.You wouldn't bother finishing this movie if weren't for Slaughter's performance - but since he's in it, you'll probably finish it.