A series of strange murders have been taking place in London. The murders are of men who play in a string quartet together and a creepy toy doll is left at the scene of each death.
Inspector Holloway (Patrick Wymark) investigates and is soon very curious about a certain Mrs Von Sturm (a gloriously bonkers Margaret Johnston) – an eccentric widowed woman who lives in a strange house full of dolls with her irritable son Mark (John Standing).
Holloway learns that the dead men – Reinhardt Klermer (John Harvey), Frank Saville (Alexander Knox), Martin Roth (Thorley Walters) and Victor Ledoux (Robert Crewdson) – had served on an Allied War Commission at the end of World War II and convicted a German industrialist called Von Sturm, for using slave labour and confiscated his estates.
It transpires, however, that Klermer may have discovered evidence of corruption on the commission which, if proved, would see Von Sturm’s estates restored.
The two young leads are Judy Huxtable and Don Borisenko.
As originally written and filmed, the killer’s identity was easy to guess. So the film was edited by Milton Subotsky so that every time Patrick Wymark opened his mouth in the penultimate scene, the camera cut away from him, and the producers overlaid his dialogue. Every time someone replied to him, the film also cut away from them and overlaid their dialogue.
The edits changed the entire last scene with post-synched dialogue and, in doing so, changed the murderer.
Released in February 1966, the reviews for The Psychopath were favourable, but the box office returns were poor, though Paramount managed to salvage the situation to some degree by pairing the film in reissue with The Skull (1965).
Inspector Holloway
Patrick Wymark Mrs Von Sturm
Margaret Johnston Mark Von Sturm
John Standing Frank Saville
Alexander Knox Louise Saville
Judy Huxtable Donald Loftis
Don Borisenko Martin Roth
Thorley Walters Victor Ledoux
Robert Crewdson Dr Glyn
Colin Gordon Morgan
Tim Barrett Tucker
Frank Forsyth Mary
Olive Gregg Briggs
Harold Lang Gina
Gina Gianelli Reinhardt Klermer
John Harvey
