Watch Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street For Free

Nice effects though.

I wanted to but couldn't!

hyped garbage

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I suppose most of us know something of the story of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street. I believe he shows up in James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" as Swiney Todt. But I'm not sure that most of the youngsters of today, share less of our common data base, so I'd better spell it out. Sweeney Todd back in the mid-19th century was a barber who slaughtered some of his customers and gave them to the woman next door who chopped the cadavers into mincemeat and baked them into pies, sold at a penny apiece.If Charles Dickens has had more of a taste for the macabre instead of just the Micawber, he might have written this. It has all the elements of early Victorian drama. There's the penniless boy from the poor house, apprenticed unwillingly to the most loathsome master any young lad ever had with the exception of a malignant boatswain's mate I once had the misfortune to serve under. Well, never mind that. There are greedy entrepreneurs, shady business dealings, blackmail, conflict with social classes, a horde of riches and the constant threat of abject poverty. Tell me that's not Dickensian.Todd has a strange relationship with the bakery woman next door. He slips her the meat, the cadavers, through a secret passageway in the basement. They always seem at odd with each other, mostly over splitting up the profits, but then she's jealous as well because Todd is courting the daughter of a rich man that he's somehow got in his thrall.To be brief, one of his intended customers escapes at the last minute and returns later to the barber shop where Sweeney Todd is poetically disposed of. There's no throat cutting and no blood.Other commenters have shown a familiarity with the narrative's history and the people involved in the production, but I know nothing about either. As a thriller or melodrama, it's kneecapped by its production values. It looks almost like a staged play. The acting of the central figure, Todd Slaughter, is so outrageous this if it were meant as a joke it almost succeeds. He looks and sounds a little like Stanley Holloway gone bad. He fawns over his victims before dumping them unceremoniously into the cellar. When he's not being overly deferential, he cackles like a cartoon maniac and rubs his palms together. He wigs out merely in contemplation of his evil deeds.There are some attempts at humor, mostly grisly. A handful of men stand around at the end, wondering what Todd did with his victims, while one of them munches on a mincemeat pie. And Todd advises his customers that he's going to do a nice job of "polishing them off." There is an "African scene" in which the natives -- genuine blacks -- have been directed to jabber in their "native language" by chanting "la la la la la" out of sync with each other. I could probably pull the movie's entire budget from my wallet if I could afford a wallet.

An interesting Dickinsonian melodrama with an evil man with a maniacal laugh in Sweeney Todd (Tod Slaughter). He has designs on a shipowner's (D.J. Williams) daughter (Eve Lister), but she is in love with the ship's Captain (Bruce Seton).Todd manages to get the shipowner in his debt and barters bankruptcy for his daughter's hand. But the owner will not barter.So Todd attempts to kill the Captain, who escapes with the help of Mrs Lovatt (Stella Rho), who is in love with Todd and jealous of his interest in Johanna (Lister).Mark (Seton) plans to trap Todd and get back his treasure. The climax involves murder, a fire, and the death of evil.Great story and good music throughout. The cannibalism is barely hinted at, and the famous razor action is never seen.

If you are watching this old British movie and only comparing it to the more recent movie or the Stephen Sondheim play, then you will no doubt be very disappointed because the stories are so different. However, if compared to films of the day, then this low-budget film is a better than average time-passer.Unlike the play and movie based on the play, this version of Sweeney Todd is different in so many ways--especially regarding his motivation to kill. The 1936 Todd kills only for greed sake and he is not crazy in the conventional sense--just a sociopathic and selfish jerk. There is no revenge motive--it's just money. Also, there is no wife or daughter and the pie shop may or may not be how he disposes of the bodies--it is only implied that they are made into meat pies. And, not surprisingly for the 1930s, there is no blood, as the victims are dispatched in a really neat way--just without all the blood.What does this film have going for it? Well, it does have a sick sense of humor and should appeal to classic film buffs who like dark films. Also it is pretty original--after all, Sondheim based his play on this film and the old legend.The biggest negatives are the terrible overacting by Mr. Slaughter (great name, huh?) who plays Sweeney Todd and the general lack of incidental music. While there is some music here and there, the film is generally very quiet and stark--betraying the film's low-budget roots.Still, it's an interesting film--just don't spend too much time comparing it to the Tim Burton incarnation--they're like two entirely different films.

Karloff aSt the Monster, Lee and Lugosi as the Count, Lon Chaney jr as the Wolfman, Cushing as the Baron and Tod as Fleet Street's most notorious barber! Certain horror stars are destined to be associated with certain roles and Mr slaughter would forever be identified with Sweeney Todd. Provincial theatregoers and the outlying suburbs of London could be guaranteed a welter of blood - or beetroot juice - whenever Tod came to town for a 2-week residency. By the 30's, he was established as a star turn, having British B films built around him - his old-school melodramas being mostly rewritten from their stage versions to prominently feature him - see Jeffrey Richards excellent article on Slaughter in the book THE UNKNOWN 30'S.Despite the distancing device of a prologue and epilogue in a modern barbers, the film holds up extremely well. The sailor's battle with the natives at Trader Patterson's shows the grasp of the film's budget exceeding its reach. But all the staples of Victorian melodrama are present - the villain, the hero and heroine, the older man (usually a disapproving Father of the heroine) and a comic couple. Modern day audiences may feel decidedly queasy about the film's maltreatment of Tobias Wragg. Threatened and intimidated by Todd, cheerfully guzzling down god-knows-what in Mrs Lovatt's pies and forced to wear the heroine's clothes - he must have grown into an adult certifiable for treatment. The ending is contrived with Johanna rushing - unconvincingly disguised as a boy - to Sweeney's barbershop and being left to perish in the flames as the villain covers his tracks. Even more unlikely is the way Sweeney stays to watch his emporium go up in flames instead of fleeing with his riches, then rushing in for an ill-advised fight with Jack Ingestre (who adopts a convincing Yorkshire accent for his farmer disguise). The tipping chair was adopted to prevent us actually seeing any throat slitting but it results in a suitably ironic finale as the unconscious Todd is despatched to the inferno below. There is now an official Tod Slaughter website so log on and lend your support to the greatest villain British acting ever produced.