One day, as the mercantile ship The Golden Hope readies to leave, Todd watches Johanna Oakley (Eve Lister) and Mark Ingerstreet (Bruce Seton).

They are in love, but Mark is shipping out and laments that he is a poor man unable to win the approval of Johanna's father, Governor Oakley (D. J. Williams).

Nearby, Johanna's servant Nan (Davina Craig) asks Mark's fellow sailor Pearley (Jerry Verno) to buy her various luxury goods while he's away.

In addition to being a barber, Todd buys a share of Oakley's shipping company and hopes to marry Johanna.

Using his charm, Todd lures wealthy, respectable customers from the docks into his barbershop at Fleet Street, where he sits them in a "special" barber's chair.

Todd fails to recognize Mark and while he gets ready to shave his new customer, Pearley sneaks into Mrs. Lovatt's cellar.

Returning to 1936, the barber's terrified patron runs out of the shop while still wearing a full face of shaving cream.

[3] Richards stated what was kept was the familiar melodramatic elements including secret passages, disguises and star-crossed lovers.

[4] The films of Tod Slaughter including The Face at the Window (1939) and Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936) were described by Conrich as being "intended as melodramas: highly theatrical, mischievous and pantomimical.

[1] On its initial release, Kinematograph Weekly praised the production as a "colourful period thriller, smoothly adapted" while the Monthly Film Bulletin stated that the "Direction and much of the action belong to the stage."

He overacts ridiculously [...] From the action and dialog to the direction of George King the picture is stamped with mediocrity" and that "Technically, including photography, film is way below standard.

"[3] From a retrospective review, Kim Newman gave the film a three stars out of five rating, writing in Empire that the film was a "Wonderful Victorian horror melodrama brought to the big screen with one of the forgotten marvels of British cinema, Todd Slaughter on top form"[8]