The Body Snatcher (1945)
Directed by Robert Wise

Film Review

Robert Wise's immediate follow-up to The Curse of the Cat People (1944) under the guiding hand of producer Val Lewton is another atmospheric little thriller, an inspired adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's short story The Body Snatcher.  The film presages Wise's subsequent horror masterpiece The Haunting (1963), both in its oppressively expressionistic photography and imaginative use of background sound to create a sustained mood of menace, which builds slowly and relentlessly towards the thrilling climax.  Whilst Wise never quite managed to match the stylistic brilliance of his contemporary and previous Lewton acolyte Jacques Tourneur, his two Lewton schlock horror films stand up well against comparable offerings from Universal Pictures and are fine examples of what can be achieved on a shoestring budget.

It is probably because it is more firmly anchored in the real world and has no need to invoke supernatural forces that The Body Snatcher has a more profound impact than most other horror films of its time.  The film is distinguished by an utterly chilling performance from Boris Karloff, who is unremittingly creepy as the grave robber Gray.  Even without layers of makeup slapped on his face, Karloff still manages to freeze the blood and here he seems to revel in what is easily one of his greatest villain portrayals,  It can be argued that Karloff is more frightening in this film than he ever was in his better-publicised monster roles.  Throughout the film, Gray exudes a deliciously vile charm and positively reeks of the graveyard, having a far more oppressive presence than Karloff's Frankenstein monster or Mummy.  There is something inordinately chilling in the way that Karloff plays Gray, not with overt menace, but with a very contained, almost Pinteresque, suggestion of evil intent.

Boris Karloff outclasses and outperforms every other actor in the cast, although Henry Daniell gives him a good run for his money as the equally sinister Dr MacFarlane.   Bela Lugosi was foisted unceremoniously on Robert Wise by his producer, hoping to capitalise on the shared billing of Karloff and Lugosi (as it turned out, this is the last time the two actors appeared in the same film).   Although he is on screen for barely ten minutes, Lugosi adds much to the film's unsettlingly dark mood and is superb in the harrowing scene in which he finally gets to confront Karloff, monster-to-monster.   Helped along by Karloff's gripping performance and some truly inspired lighting and camera work, The Body Snatcher ranks as one of the most effective of 1940s American horror films, and it is one of a mere handful that still sends a shiver down the spine when you play it back in your mind after watching it.

Film Synopsis

Edinburgh, 1831.  When medical student Donald Fettes tells his tutor Dr MacFarlane that he no longer has the money to continue his studies, the latter generously appoints him his assistant.  Among Fettes's less attractive duties is to pay grave robber John Gray for the corpses he steals from the city's cemeteries.  When a paralysed little girl is brought to MacFarlane by her hopeful mother, the surgeon refuses to perform the operation on her spine that will allow her to walk again.   Fettes persuades his employer to go ahead with the operation, although MacFarlane insists that he will require another dead body to experiment on beforehand.  Gray naturally comes to MacFarlane's assistance, but the body he supplies is that of a blind street singer that Fettes saw alive only a few hours previously.   Overhearing a conversation in which Fettes accuses Gray of murder, MacFarlane's porter Joseph sees an opportunity to make some easy money.  Unfortunately, Gray is not the kind of man who can be bribed...