| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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| Science-Fiction |
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| Horror |
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| Fantasy |
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THE BODY SNATCHER
Rating: 
USA. 1945.
Director – Robert Wise, Screenplay – Carlos Keith [Val Lewton] & Philip MacDonald, Based on the Short Story by Robert Louis Stevenson, Producer – Val Lewton, Photography (b&w) – Robert De Grasse, Music – Roy Webb, Music Supervisor – C. Bakaleinikoff, Art Direction – Albert S. D’Agostino & Walter E. Keller. Production Company – RKO.
Cast:
Boris Karloff (John Gray), Henry Daniell (Dr Toddy MacFarlane), Russell Wade (Donald Fettes), Edith Atwater (Meg Cameron), Bela Lugosi (Joseph), Sharyn Moffett (Georgina Marsh), Rita Corday (Mrs Marsh)
Plot: Edinburgh, 1831. Medical student Donald Fettes goes to his lecturer Dr MacFarlane saying he is too poor to continue with his medical studies and so MacFarlane agrees to take him on as his assistant. Fettes is disgusted when he finds that one of his jobs is to receive the corpses that MacFarlane uses for study which are stolen from the graveyard by cabman John Gray, but MacFarlane convinces him that some unpleasant truths are necessary in the name of science. Gray then pushes MacFarlane to conduct a complex spinal operation on a crippled child. When MacFarlane protests that he has no bodies to study the operation on, Fettes is shocked when Gray goes out and murders them. Slowly Fettes becomes drawn into the wretched games Gray plays with MacFarlane with Gray blackmailing MacFarlane with the information he could reveal about MacFarlane’s involvement in the Burke and Hare trial.
Producer Val Lewton worked at RKO Radio Pictures during the 1940s and is one of the most important names in the horror genre. Lewton initiated an entirely new approach to horror with Cat People (1942), creating a form of horror where audiences were left deliberately uncertain as to whether what was transpiring was real or in the minds of the superstitious. Lewton had considerable success with ensuing films such as I Walked with a Zombie (1943), The Ghost Ship (1943), The Leopard Man (1943), The Seventh Victim (1943), The Curse of the Cat People (1944), Isle of the Dead (1945) and Bedlam (1946). The Body Snatcher is also notable as being the first solo directorial effort of Robert Wise who would go onto such celebrated successes as West Wide Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965) and noted genre efforts such as The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), The Haunting (1963), The Andromeda Strain (1971), Audrey Rose (1977) and Star Trek – The Motion Picture (1979). Wise had previously worked as editor for Orson Welles on Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), before debuting for Lewton as co-director of Curse of the Cat People.
With his last two films – this and Bedlam – Lewton began to turn away from the ambiguously superstitious to dark, ghoulish period pieces. This was the first of many films based on the Burke and Hare story – others include The Flesh and the Fiends/Mania (1960), Burke and Hare (1971) and The Doctor and the Devils (1985). Wise demonstrates a considerable mastery of the trademark Lewtonian effect of suggested horror. One scene that stands long in the memory is the one where the camera sits watching an old woman singer as she disappears down a gloomy alley followed by Boris Karloff’s cab – she vanishes off into the darkness singing and the cab follows after, there is a long moment and then the singing stops with a quiet yelp. The scene where Karloff steals the first body is told with a nicely shocking economy – we seeing an exaggerated shadow creeping along the graveyard wall as we hear the dog waiting beside its dead master’s grave whining, the shadow swings the spade with a clang and the dog’s howl suddenly dies. The only real lapse is the climax with the scene with the body under the sack returning to life which, while quite shocking, adds a quasi-supernatural element that jars with the rest of the film’s carefully established mood.
The film contains one of Boris Karloff’s finest performances. The character is one of sharp ambiguity – on one hand kind to children and full of overly exaggerated genteel, but capable of turning cold at a moment’s notice and delivering wonderfully implied threats. Even Bela Lugosi manages to give a good performance, disguising his hammy propensities in a brief role as a genuinely thick character. Not too much attention is paid to obtaining authentic Scottish accents, but it doesn’t matter too much in this otherwise fine film.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1991
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