Never Too Late To Mend (DVD)

Fond of the whip, the isolation chamber, straight jackets and starvation tactics, Squire Meadows is the sadistic governor of a Victorian prison who relishes making the lives of his prisoners a torturous hell. He's also a dishonorable lecher scheming to marry Susan, a beautiful village girl. She's deeply in love with someone else - a handsome but poverty-stricken man named George, who is forced to work in far-away Australia so he can earn enough money to wed her. The evil squire intercepts George's long-distance love letters and coerces Susan into marrying him. News reaches the squire that George is making his way back home (and is now a wealthy man). Learing exposure, Meadows determines to destroy George before he can return.

A gruesome and deliciously lurid thriller, Never Too Late To Mend places the spotlight firmly on Tod Slaughter, an often-overlooked British horror film star whose performances are always bursting with over-the-top melodrama. The film is based on the writings of Charles Reade, which inspired Queen Victoria to overhaul the deplorable conditions of the era's prison system. Scottish-born director David MacDonald later helmed the unusual British sci-fi thriller Devil Girl From Mars, as well as episodes of the eerie Boris Karloff TV-series "The Veil." Script writer H.F. Maltby also wrote the dialogue for Tod Slaughter's Sweeney Todd and Crimes At The Dark House.

• horror