It is England in the 1830s. London's dockside is teeming with ships and sailors who have made their fortune in foreign lands. Sweeney Todd, a Fleet Street barber, awaits the arrival of men whose first port of call is for a good, close shave. For most it will be the last time they are seen alive. Using a specially designed barber's chair, Sweeney Todd despatches his victims to the cellar below, where he robs them of their new found fortunes and chops their remains into small pieces. Meanwhile, Mrs Lovett is enjoying a roaring trade for her popular penny meat pies.
Acting
Tod Slaughter's eyebrow-acting alone deserves its own Oscar category.
Production
The trapdoor chair mechanism — low-budget ingenuity at its finest.
Director
George King
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Tod Slaughter made a career playing Victorian melodrama villains; this was his signature role, performed on stage hundreds of times before filming.
The famous demon barber legend predates this film by a century — penny dreadfuls made Todd a folk antihero long before Sondheim got his hands on him.
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