Grip of the Strangler (1958) on Netflix
NR19581h 18mCrimeHorrorMysteryThriller
Twenty years after Edward Styles was hanged as the Haymarket Strangler, the novelist James Rankin sets out to prove the conviction wrong. Police official Burk lets him examine the case evidence.
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- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb6.2/102,436 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
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Plot summary
In 1860, Edward Styles is tried and put to death for the murders laid at the door of the Haymarket Strangler, a killer who strangled his victims before stabbing them. Styles cannot use one of his arms. Twenty years on, the novelist and reformer James Rankin opens his own inquiry into the conviction, arguing that Styles had no proper legal representation. The police official Burk lets him study the case evidence. The Strangler's fifth victim, the dancer Martha Stuart, was killed at the Judas Hole music hall, where the singer Cora Seth and other onlookers noticed the killer's crippled left arm, and the murder weapon was never recovered. A doctor named Tennant performed the autopsies on the five women and on Styles, and Rankin takes charge of Tennant's abandoned belongings, which include a journal and a surgeon's kit.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Grip of the Strangler (1958)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Screenwriter Jan Read's script was rewritten by John Croydon, who made the killer a Jack the Ripper-type murderer and the transformation physical; in Read's original draft, Rankin was only possessed by the killer's spirit.
- The distribution deal with Eros Films was conditional on Amalgamated Productions providing a second film, so producer Richard Gordon arranged to make Fiend Without a Face back to back with The Haunted Strangler, using a different cast and director.
