This 90-minute sleazefest has a crazed moral crusader – dressed in black leather and a Beatles wig – killing prostitutes, au pairs and assorted young dolly birds in London, Jack the Ripper style, after judging them “depraved”.
The case is being investigated by no-nonsense copper Detective Inspector Bill Rowan (Gilbert Wynne), who becomes very personally invested when his wife, Jenny (Linda Marlowe) is knifed to death in the shower by the killer.
Rowan is convinced that cocky lothario Pete Laver (Donald Sumpter) – “I bang every bird I meet” – is the man responsible and begins a vendetta against him, using fair means or foul to nail him for the crimes, much to the chagrin of his Chief Inspector (future Love Thy Neighbour star Jack Smethurst).
Elsewhere, grizzled old-school Judge Charles Lomax (Jack May) is obsessed with putting a stop to “the filth and horror of the age”, handing out massively disproportionate sentences to defendants he views as morally unsound and having a near breakdown after delivering each verdict. Could he have taken to handing out summary justice of his own?
Then there’s the judge’s shifty-looking clerk, Carter (Terry Scully) whose ringing denunciations of the permissive society draw even Lomax’s disdain for their extremity, but who spends his spare time ogling porn mags and pawing at strippers in the fleshpits of Soho.
When revealed, the killer’s identity doesn’t come as a big surprise. We’re then treated to 30 minutes of him going increasingly barmy – including him dressing in appalling drag to evade police and encountering some queerbashing youths who he swiftly turns the tables on – while Rowan and his colleagues encounter various obstacles in getting to him.
Director “Lewis J Force” was in fact Lindsay Shonteff under an assumed name.
Judge Charles Lomax
Jack May Helena Lomax
Justine Lord Detective Inspector Bill Rowan
Gilbert Wynne Jenny Rowan
Linda Marlowe Carter
Terry Scully Pete Laver
Donald Sumpter Powell
Peter Forbes-Robertson Policewoman Josie Leach
Jacqueline Clarke Martingale
Michael Nightingale Chief Inspector
Jack Smethurst Endell’s QC
Simon Lack Counsel
Roy Skelton
John Gabriel Prostitutes
Carol Haddon
Yvonne Paul Strippers
April Harlow
Shirley Easton Doctor
Walter Horsbrugh Marion Brown
Elisabeth Murray
