Rent The Body Snatcher (1945)

3.8 of 5 from 73 ratings
1h 18min
Rent The Body Snatcher Online DVD & Blu-ray Rental
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Synopsis:
Boris Karloff stars in one of his most chilling roles as the sinister 'resurrection man' of old Edinburgh. Medical student Donald Fettes (Russell Wade) is apprentice to Dr. 'Toddy' MacFarlane (Henry Daniell), greatest anatomist of the age. But, as Fettes learns, MacFarlane is not scrupulous how he obtains the bodies he uses for dissection: he buys them from sinister cabman John Gray (Boris Karloff), who robs the graves of the recently deceased. But Gray's grim work has attracted attention and the cemeteries are under watch. Unwilling to give up his lucrative trade, Gray finds another source of corpses - the bodies of people he has killed himself...
Actors:
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Directors:
Producers:
Val Lewton
Writers:
Robert Louis Stevenson, Philip MacDonald, Val Lewton
Studio:
Odeon Entertainment
Genres:
Classics, Drama, Horror, Thrillers
Collections:
100 Years of German Expressionism, Film History, Films to Watch If You Like..., What to Watch Next If You Liked Dracula
BBFC:
Release Date:
11/07/2011
Run Time:
78 minutes
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono
Subtitles:
None
DVD Regions:
Region 0 (All)
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Full Screen 1.33:1 / 4:3
Colour:
B & W

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Reviews (2) of The Body Snatcher

Let Sleeping Dead Lie - The Body Snatcher review by Count Otto Black

Spoiler Alert
06/07/2017

As somebody who lives in Edinburgh, I'm always amused to see it portrayed by Hollywood, and this movie actually does it pretty well, capturing the peculiar almost subterranean quality of the Old Town - the set designers must have been given lots of photos of the Cowgate to draw inspiration from. The real Edinburgh can even be glimpsed in a few seconds of the oldest archive footage they could find. The problem is, as always, the accents. And Russell Wade as the strangely passive "hero", who accomplishes extraordinarily little in the course of the film, is so painfully un-Scottish that he can't even pronounce "Edinburgh" correctly! He's also a terrible actor, and, as previously noted, a waste of space who gets in the way of the more interesting bits of the story with a lot of insipid padding involving a little girl's operation and a lukewarm semi-romance which is so irrelevant it never quite bothers to actually happen.

I'd give it a higher rating if Russell Wade wasn't in it, or his character was very minor, because the real story is all about the twisted relationship between Henry Daniell's hypocritical Dr. McFarlane, who pretends his selfishness is necessary for the greater good but is far too intelligent to fool himself, and Boris Karloff's incredibly sinister cabman John Gray, who supplements his income by supplying the good doctor with fresh bodies, no questions asked where from, and treats him with insolent over-familiarity despite the huge difference in their social status. What exactly is the backstory between these two? That's what we want to know, not whether some kid who can't act will recover from her operation! Which obviously she will because they always do.

At its heart, this is the tale of a man who becomes bad because he's too morally weak to be good, and what happens when he meets a man who is truly evil. As the real baddie, Karloff is simply magnificent. Gray isn't normally listed as a classic Karloff monster because he's not a proper monster, just a very bad man indeed. But he should be. If Gray had turned out late in the film to be an actual devil from hell, it wouldn't have seemed odd, because he really is evil incarnate. Even his occasional moments of "goodness" seem like a man whimsically trying on a coat that doesn't suit him just to see how funny he looks in the mirror. It's Karloff's movie, and he gleefully seizes it with both hands and never lets go unless he's off-screen. It might even have been a masterpiece if all the sentimental padding hadn't been there to get in his way. Watch it for Karloff's performance, which is one of his best, and, as portrayals of unashamedly despicable people so often are, far more entertaining than the good guys.

Oh, by the way, poor old Bela Lugosi is in it for about five minutes as a moron wearing a wig borrowed from the Three Stooges. He doesn't look happy, and you can't blame him. Even Hollywood couldn't pretend that Bela's accent was Scottish, so his character is "recently arrived from Lisbon". I bet that line gets a big laugh in Portugal.

2 out of 2 members found this review helpful.

Lewton Horror (spoiler). - The Body Snatcher review by Steve

Spoiler Alert
26/08/2021

The final two films Val Lewton made for RKO's B horror unit (with Bedlam in 1946) stand apart. They are not the supernatural and psychological horrors of the earlier films which were usually located in contemporary America. These are historical dramas set in England. They are only horror films at all because of the grotesque themes. The Body Snatcher may not be quintessential Lewton but it is still a magnificent and exciting film in its own right.

It is loosely based on Robert Louis Stevenson's story of a grave robber in Edinburgh in the aftermath of Burke and Hare. Boris Karloff is John Gray, a cab driver who supplies bodies to a teaching hospital. When supply doesn't satisfy demand he isn't above creating a few corpses of his own. The head of the medical school is Dr. MacFarlane (Henry Daniell) who takes receipt of the bodies and so is in very deep with the sinister cabbie. To escape his clutches, MacFarlane kills Gray.

There is a theme touching on how much wrong is it acceptable to do, in order to do a greater ultimate good, which perhaps touches on the social Darwinism of fascism. The script is superb, full of colourfully archaic language, rich period detail, and it looks amazing, borrowing the set of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Lewton's pools of darkness are gorgeously melancholic.

In a chilling finale to the film the mad doctor digs up a body himself. Before he gets it back to the laboratory, he finds it has turned physically into the dead coachman. The heart of the film is the deeply pleasurable head to head between Karloff and Daniell. This is the performance of Karloff's life, as the insidious, leering, morally forsaken murderer. And it is a poignant moment for fans of horror when Karloff 'burkes' Bela Lugosi in their final appearance together.

0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.

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