MARIA MARTEN, OR THE MURDER IN THE RED BARN (1936)

 "YOU SHALL BE A BRIDE . . . . A BRIDE OF DEATH!"

  Time for a long overdue visit with horror saint Tod Slaughter.  It's been quite a while since I've watched ole Tod let loose with his fiendish cackle and this movie is one I've had for a long while but never watched.  Of course, the film is based on the stage melodrama of the same name which Slaughter barnstormed around the country (the UK that is) endlessly and the film even starts with an interlocutor standing on a stage in front of the candle-lit floodlights introducing the players in the forthcoming melodrama.  I'm assuming this is much as it must have happened during the live stage play.  But more to the point, the case of Maria Marten and the Murder in the Red Barn is actually a true crime murder which actually happened way back in 1827 at the beginning of Penny Bloods and broadsheets which took the country by storm at the time.  This gives this hoary old melodrama the true crime English edge which is so nicely brought to life recently in the series of THE SUSPICION OF MR. WHICHER tele-films which deal with true crimes around this same time period (roughly).  Tod Slaughter was and remains the cackling king of this type of horror/crime melodrama; most famously portraying on stage and screen the likes of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. 

Sweet and innocent Maria Marten (Sophie Stewart) is being courted by the gypsy vagabond Carlos (Eric Portman [!]) but has fallen under the lecherous eye of Squire William Corder (Tod Slaughter).  One night he waylays Maria to his manor house and has his wicked way with her -- is there any OTHER way that Tod Slaughter has with people??? -- and poor Maria finds out she is up the duff.  Maria's puritanical father (who assumes Carlos knocked her up) throws Maria out of the house and she flees to Corder.  Unfortunately, Corder is a profligate gambler and is drowning in overdue bills and unpaid gambling debts so he has announced his impending marriage to a homely but rich spinster.  Threatening to tell her father it was really Corder who put the bun in her oven, the Squire promises to marry Maria after all.  Just meet him in the Red Barn later that night and they will fly to London and marry.  Do you think it's a good idea for Maria to show up for that meeting???  If so, you've never seen a Tod Slaughter movie!

As much as I love Tod Slaughter, his movies occasionally can be a little slow going as these very old stage plays can spend an inordinate amount of time on non-horror niceties and romantic subplots; so I was on my guard for that possibility when I began watching MARIA MARTEN.  Gladly, I didn't have to worry about that as this film kept my interest throughout.  Tod Slaughter, even when he isn't killing someone, is delightful as he has a mischievous twinkle in his eye and wicked line deliveries

Eric Portman as Carlos

throughout the movie which even made me laugh out loud a couple times at how unabashedly evil the Squire was being.  Slaughter also is hilariously cowardly when the townsfolk converge on the red barn and demand he dig up the floor.  I was floored when I realized that Eric Portman plays Carlos; Portman being a famous and well-established British actor in the coming years and starring in one of my top 10 favourite films A CANTERBURY TALE by the Archers.  The rest of the cast is unknown to me but Portman shows the leading man chops he would use to make him a well-known leading man in years to come.  Director Milton Rosmer does a nice job keeping things interesting; even with a running time of just over 60 minutes, things could STILL get dull but not here.  Rosmer also directed one of my favourite early British horrors THE SECRET OF THE LOCH two years before this so I guess I kinda like his work.    

The actual film and the legend on which it is based bares little commonality with the actual murder case.  The tale was embellished for puppet shows, broadsheets and stage plays.  Maria Marten herself wasn't quite the virginal innocent as she has already had two children by two different men out of wedlock before conceiving a third child with William Corder.  Corder himself wasn't the village squire either; only the rather well-to-do son of a farm owner.  The red barn itself was actually behind the property of Maria Marten's molecatcher father.  Corder did, however, murder Maria and bury her under the dirt floor of the barn.  As Tod Slaughter movies go, this one is right up there with my favourite THE FACE AT THE WINDOW.  Either of these two films would be a great place to start for Tod Slaughter novices.