The Body Snatcher **** (1945, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Daniell) – Classic Movie Review 2390

Director Robert Wise’s 1945 tale of horror in old Edinburgh of 1832 is one of producer Val Lewton’s most celebrated macabre thrillers. It’s very much a work of the legendary Lewton, who co-writes the script, credited as Carlos Keith, as well as producing the movie.

Boris Karloff takes a break from playing mad doctors to play a cabman called John Gray providing bodies by robbing graves for a mad doctor, Dr Wolfe MacFarlane (Henry Daniell), for anatomical research. MacFarlane runs a medical school where Donald Fettes (Russell Wade) is his young prize student, who wants to help a girl who has lost the use of her legs.

Karloff even despatches Greyfriars Bobby, the famous legendary dog protecting his master’s tomb, to get to the corpse. Of course, when the supply of naturally dead bodies runs out, with relatives protecting the graveyards, Karloff bumps off a few others, including a street singer (Donna Lee).

It’s dynamically propelled by the barnstorming star playing from Karloff and Daniell, and the tautly atmospheric direction from Wise, taking full advantage of Lewton’s famous RKO B-unit production. The team makes full use of the splendid, costly sets constructed for RKO’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939).

There must be special praise, too, for the superb art direction, Robert de Grasse’s brooding cinematography and the fine, intelligent adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story in Philip MacDonald and Lewton’s screenplay. Stevenson’s story is fictional but inspired by real-life grave robbers Burke and Hare.

[Spoiler alert] The three best scenes are all at the end: Karloff’s killing of the street singer; Daniell’s murder of Karloff; Daniell’s grave-robbing and coach ride through the storm. Alas, second-billed Bela Lugosi has a mere cameo as a servant who tries to blackmail Karloff, with fatal results. That’s a shame because he forges a striking character in his few minutes of screen time. It’s the eighth and last teaming of Karloff and Lugosi. 

Lewton rewrote largely MacDonald’s screenplay, but took a credit only after MacDonald persuaded him.

Also in the cast are Edith Atwater, Sharyn Moffett and Rita Corday.

Greyfriars Bobby is the subject of a couple of films, in 1960 and 2005. The Skye Terrier lived in a later era of 19th-century Edinburgh and supposedly spent 14 years guarding the grave of his owner until he died on 14 January 1872.

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© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2390

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