Director · 1922–2017

Robert Day

3: briefs
13:00: average
39 min: in total

On film.briefs3

Corridors of Blood

Robert Day · 1958

Corridors of Blood (1958) is a British horror-drama starring Boris Karloff as Dr. Thomas Bolton, an 1840s surgeon whose pioneering work with anaesthetic gases leads to professional ruin, addiction, and entanglement with criminals. Directed by Robert Day and shot by Geoffrey Faithfull, it trades gothic excess for moral austerity, using tight framing, chiaroscuro lighting, and Karloff’s restrained performance to trace a downward spiral rooted in cause and effect. Though hampered by repetitive plotting and thin characterisation in places, it remains a coherent, atmospheric study of scientific vocation undone by human frailty.

13:00

First Man into Space

Robert Day · 1959

First Man into Space (1959) is a British science fiction-horror film directed by Robert Day, following a US Navy pilot who returns from extreme altitude encrusted in meteoric dust and transformed into a blood-dependent creature. Built on a tight budget and grounded in procedural realism, it prioritises physiological logic over myth or metaphor, using restrained performances, functional cinematography, and a lean narrative structure to sustain its central conceit. Though limited by its means, it delivers a coherent, atmospheric, and quietly tragic vision of spaceflight as irreversible bodily violation.

13:00

The Haunted Strangler

Robert Day · 1958

The Haunted Strangler (1958) is a British horror film directed by Robert Day and starring Boris Karloff. Set in Victorian London, it follows novelist James Rankin as he re-examines the conviction of Edward Styles, the so-called Haymarket Strangler. His investigation leads him to uncover his own forgotten identity as Dr. Tennant, the real murderer — a revelation triggered by handling the Strangler’s knife. Shot at Walton Studios, with music by Buxton Orr and editing by Peter Mayhew, the film blends procedural detail with psychological horror, prioritising atmosphere and physical transformation over shock or gore.