The Psychopath (1966 film)

Police inspector Holloway investigates a string of murders where the victims have dolls attached to their bodies. The trail soon leads to a disabled German woman named Mrs. Ilsa Von Sturm, who knows a set of dark secrets that may hold the key to the murders.

It develops that Mrs. Von Sturm's late husband Hedwig was found guilty of war crimes and the family's multi-million dollar estate seized by the Allies. Four murder victims were a part of that Allied War crimes tribunal, and they may have illegally seized the industrial empire for themselves, which would give the Von Sturm family good reason for personal vengeance.

The murderer's M.O., except for the leaving of the realistically carved dolls, differs with each killing. Inspector Holloway, who at times can seem like the only sane man in London, doggedly pursues the case to a successful conclusion...and salvages the romance of Louise Saville and her number one suspect fiancé, Donald Loftis, a medical student with the presumed technical knowledge to commit the murders.

• Patrick Wymark as Inspector Holloway
• Margaret Johnston as Mrs. Ilsa Von Sturm
• John Standing as Mark Von Sturm
• Alexander Knox as Frank Saville
• Judy Huxtable as Louise Saville
• Don Borisenko as Donald Loftis
• Thorley Walters as Martin Roth
• Robert Crewdson as Victor Ledoux
• Colin Gordon as Dr. Glyn
• Tim Barrett as Morgan
• John Harvey as Reinhardt Klermer
• Harold Lang as Briggs
• Peter Diamond as junk yard proprietor
• Gina Gianelli as Gina

Shooting started September 1965.^[3] The Psychopath was an attempt to capitalize on the success of Hammer Films' recent series of psychological thrillers, including Taste of Fear (1961).^[4]

Robert Bloch recalls in his autobiography Once Around the Bloch: An Unauthorized Autobiography being taken with his wife Eleanor Zalisko Alexander to the country in England by Ronald Kirkbride, and "the next morning a limo took us to Shepperton Studios, where we lunched after watching Freddy Francis helm a scene for The Psychopath. The scene that morning was one I had indicated as taking place at the bottom of a staircase leading to the upper floor of a house. But everything they actually shot now took place at the top of a staircase which descended to the cellar. What I wrote up they put down. And when I took director Francis aside and questioned him about the change he pointed out that building a set with a stairway was expensive. Shooting from a high angle into the redressed recess beneath a soundstage trapdoor saved money. In other words, I was right back on The Couch (1962) with The Night Walker (1964). A low-budget film always operates on the same principle, that is to say, no principle whatsoever except saving a buck, even if it means losing the potential of the picture".^[5]