You can only visit the real 'Black Museum' (now based at New Scotland Yard) by invitation so you may have to make do with visiting this version of the 'Black Museum' put together by crime writer Edmond Bancroft (played by Michael Gough) which is a third rate approximation of the real thing. You would certainly get more of a thrill by visiting 'The Chamber Of Horrors' at Madame Tussauds which at least has more authentic looking waxworks than the pathetic efforts displayed here. The museum also seems to double as a laboratory with banks of electronic machines (all flashing lights, dials and levers) whose purpose is never really made clear but comes in handy for electrocuting an interfering busybody. So you may think viewing this film would be a complete waste of your time but it's not quite like that. For starters this film contains the most gruesome and bizarre murders shown on the screen up to that time and even now they have quite an impact. People still talk about the binoculars with the deadly spikes which kill by piercing the eyes and brain - although I'm not sure how the victim would have removed them once they were embedded into her eye sockets. Then there is murder by an improvised guillotine - although it does seem strange that the victim didn't notice a maniac with a huge blade standing at the head of her bed before she got into it. An old lady is murdered by ice tongs (!) and a man who is lowered into a vat of acid is retrieved as a (fully articulated!) skeleton. The special effects are distinctly lacking and compared to the excesses of today you actually see very little but the murders still achieve an immense shock value. The acting is variable but the performances bring lots of incidental pleasures. Michael Gough is madly intense as the owner of the museum, June Cunningham as the 'sexy' blonde performs a 'torrid' dance at the local pub, for the benefit of no-one in particular, before losing her head and Beatrice Varley entertains us nicely as the wizened and canny antique shop owner. Blink and you'll miss lovely old timer Hilda Barry with just a few lines as 'the woman in the hall'. The climax takes place at a funfair (probably the long gone Battersea Park) with a double death at the Big Wheel, witnessed by all and sundry, but the police establish what's what and who's who in a couple of minutes, the ride reopens immediately and the crowds disperse to carry on enjoying themselves as though nothing has happened. It's British, it's bizarre and there's been nothing quite like it before or since.
Review of Horrors of the Black Museum
