The Flesh and the Fiends (1960)
Directed by John Gilling

Film Review

The gruesome story of Burke and Hare, the most notorious of Britain's grave robbers, is given a suitably lurid rendition in this well-crafted period piece, the crowning achievement of the production partnership of Monty Berman and Robert S. Baker.  Through their London-based company Tempean Films, Berman and Baker turned out a string of low-budget B-movies and scored some notable successes with such films as Jack the Ripper (1958) and The Hellfire Club (1961).  The Flesh and the Fiends was Berman and Baker's most ambitious and, arguably, finest film.  Not only does it give a generally authentic account of Burke and Hare's activities, it also makes a highly effective horror film, one that is as creepy and unsettling as any other British chiller of this time. 

The film's director John Gilling could easily be mistaken for a student of Val Lewton, so vividly does the film echo Lewton's earlier production of The Body Snatcher (1945), an adaptation of a Robert-Louis Stevenson story which was itself inspired by the case of Burke and Hare.  What Gilling has in common with Lewton is an unerring ability to imbue his horror films with a graveyard stench and an unremitting aura of menace.  After working with Berman and Baker for several years, Gilling lent his talents to Hammer, where he made some of his finest films in the horror genre, including The Plague of the Zombies (1966), The Reptile (1966) and The Mummy's Shroud (1967).  The Flesh and the Fiends gave Gilling a rare opportunity to work with a substantial budget, in glorious widescreen and with a cast of the highest calibre, and the result is far from disappointing.

Having played Baron Frankenstein so brilliantly for Hammer in The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958), Peter Cushing was the obvious casting choice for the role of Dr Knox, the driven man of science and dubious morals who bears a more than passing resemblance to Mary Shelley's famous fictional scientist.  Like Frankenstein, Knox is so blinded by his commitment to science that he loses sight of the ethical consequences of his actions.  His is a crisis of conscience that remains highly topical in the field of medical research, and the film's portrayal of the conflict between scientific progress and morality is so intelligently handled that it still has an immensely powerful resonance.  There will always be those who can only see Knox as an outright villain, a fiend who was knowingly complicit in Burke and Hare's murderous exploits, but Cushing portrays him in a far more complex and sympathetic light, a kind of latterday Faust who is ready to sell his soul for the cause of scientific research.

Cushing's benign and humane portrayal of Knox makes a beautiful contrast with Donald Pleasence's chillingly monstrous interpretation of Hare, the more sadistic of the two killers (and ironically the one not to be prosecuted for his actions).  Pleasence's Hare has an almost iconic quality to it and reminds us of cinema's other great horror icons, such as the insect-like vampire in Murnau's Nosferatu (1922) and the murderous somnambulist in Robert Wiene's Das Cabinet des Dr Caligari (1920).  Hare's monstrosity shows itself not only in his sinister cherubin face, which appears to be permanently set in a malicious rictus smile, but also in everything he says and does.  Unlike Knox, he has absolutely no morality and cannot distinguish between a living human being and a corpse: to him, they are all the same, flesh to be sold for the price of a few drinks.  Next to Hare, George Rose's Burke has an almost child-like innocence, and it is fitting that Hare should receive the grimmest punishment for his sins, in what is undoubtedly the film's most shocking sequence.

Monty Berman's skill as a cinematographer shows throughout the film, but mostly in the intensely atmospheric nocturnal sequences, where most of the foul deeds take place.  Clearly influenced by German expressionism of the 1930s, the lighting and camerawork bring a brutally nightmarish feel to these scenes, the grim actions that take place in the foreground being amplified, rendered more horrific, through the huge monstrous shadows that get projected onto walls in the background.  The savagery of Burke and Hare's litany of crime reaches its climax in a memorable scene in which the murderous duo pursue their final victim (an idiot played by a young Melvyn Hayes) around a farmyard, the demonic squeals of some terrified pigs ratcheting up the tension to an unbearable pitch.  No less effective is the utterly horrific scene in which the likeable streetwalker Mary (Billie Whitelaw) is led unsuspectingly to her death by the killer who obviously intends to rape her.  It is curious that these visually disturbing scenes were left pretty well untouched by the censor, but other scenes depicting female nudity were excised (but retained in a continental release).

There have been several other cinematic accounts of the Burke and Hare story - Burke & Hare (1971), The Doctor and the Devils (1985), Burke and Hare (2010) - but The Flesh and the Fiends is arguably the most inspired and the most chilling.  With its elegant art design, atmospheric photography and compelling performances from Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence it is not only a beautifully crafted piece of cinema, it is also one of the finest of British horror films, setting a standard of excellence that Hammer and its rivals could never hope to match.  The most terrifying fiends to grace British cinema are not the familiar gore-stained Gothic monstrosities beloved by Hammer but the pair of 19th century grave robbers who are convincingly portrayed in this gripping, nightmare-inducing little masterpiece.  This is the film that gave us one of the horror genre's most chilling lines, spoken not by a psychotic killer but a respectable man of science:  Death is an incident producing clay.  Use it, mould it, learn from it... Definitely not a line you would ever use on a first date.

Film Synopsis

Edinburgh, 1828.  Dr Robert Knox is an eminent anatomist who needs a regular supply of human cadavers for his anatomy lectures.  A man who is committed to the progress of science, Knox has no qualms about purchasing corpses delivered to him to by a pair of unsavoury-looking grave robbers, William Burke and William Hare.  Realising that Knox will pay more for fresher bodies, Burke and Hare begin to kill poor people that no one will miss.  One of their victims is a young prostitute named Mary, who had been going out with one of Knox's students, Chris Jackson, before they murdered her.  When Chris sees Mary's corpse waiting to be prepared for dissection he goes after Burke and Hare, but only manages to get himself killed by the ruthless duo.  Meanwhile, Knox's reputation is under attack from his medical rivals, who disapprove of his methods and his morals.  When Burke and Hare's murderous activities have been exposed, Knox faces not only criminal prosecution, but also ruin and public humiliation...