Karloff is Back!

 

 (imdb)

THE HAUNTED STRANGLER-1958-Dr. James Rankin (Boris Karloff) investigates the case of Edward Styles, hanged as a murderer years before. He seems to feel that Styles' assistant Tenet who was later confined to an asylum might be more involved than first suspected. His wife (Elizabeth Allen) wants him to drop it. He has an assistant Dr. McCall (Tim Turner) who's in love with Rankin's daughter Lily (Diane Aubrey). Rankin and McCall find out a lot about Tenet and Rankin wants to exhume his body but superintendent Burk (Anthony Dawson) won't allow it, so Rankin digs it up himself! He finds a missing surgical knife believed to be the murder weapon which transforms him into a scary one-armed killer seeking vengeance. 

Of course, it turns out Rankin is Tenet protected by his wife who was a nurse at the asylum. After he kills her, he admits he's the murderer but no one believes him and he's committed to an asylum. He turns into Tenet and escapes. He goes on a killing spree but is eventually shot after menacing his daughter. 

Cool old style horror film directed by Robert Day with Karloff using facial expressions instead of make-up. Day and Karloff worked together on CORRIDOR OF BLOOD the same year.

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An American In England

 THE FIRST MAN INTO SPACE-1959-A US astronaut Don Prescott (Bill Edwards) is launched into space. He runs into some problems and crashes back to Earth. His brother Commander Charles Prescott (Marshall Thompson) investigates. He finds the ship but not his brother. It turns out Don, an uptight wise guy beat it out to be with his Italian girlfriend Tia (Marla Landi)! On a second flight, Don hits a meteor shower and disappears. After the mysterious death of cattle and people and the destruction of a blood bank, it becomes obvious that Prescott has come back home a wheezing blood drinking monster! He looks like he's encased in dried mud but that doesn't stop him from driving a car. Tia, who also happens to be a scientist at first blames everything on Charles but later warms to him and helps out. Roger Delgado (the first "master" on the original DOCTOR WHO) plays a Mexican diplomat who's upset because the space crash ruined a bull fight!

Despite it's low budget THE FIRST MAN INTO SPACE is a decent British production partially filmed in the US. It starts off kind of stupidly but gets better when the monster shows up. Two of it's producers Charles Vetter and Richard Gordon had already made two memorable horror films : FIEND WITHOUT A FACE (also with Thompson) and THE HAUNTED STRANGLER with Boris Karloff. Wyatt Ordung is one of the credited writers as his original script was first offered to AIP who turned it down.

Director Robert Day made the previously mentioned Haunted Strangler as well as the usually overlooked CORRIDORS OF BLOOD, also with Karloff. He went on to make the Hammer version of SHE as well as several '60's Tarzan movies and worked on British and American TV.

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