The Body Snatcher

Superb adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story “The Body Snatcher” (1884), which in turn was inspired by the abominable misdeeds of Burke and Hare in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Quintessential example of an RKO production under the oversight of the great Val Lewton, who, one year after “The Curse of the Cat People” (1944), once again relies on Robert Wise’s brilliant direction to ponder themes near and dear to him: the horrors lurking in the depths of the human soul, the relativity of moral judgement, the role of ethics in medicine, the Positivist theory that scientific knowledge is infallible and only leads to good outcomes. Everything is skillfully laid out in a social context that emphasizes the way these elements can contribute to fostering socio-economic inequality and horrible psychological and behavioral consequences.

The film plumbs the depths of the human psyche using uncommonly insightful dialogue (you need only recall the rationale the working-class Gray uses to justify his harassment of the eminent scientist: “I am a small man, a humble man. And being poor, I have had to do much that I did not want to do. But so long as the great Dr. MacFarlane jumps to my whistle… that long am I a man.“), as well as through the use of sequences that are highly evocative from a figurative point of view, first and foremost being the horrific final carriage ride in which the luminary’s obsessions literally come to life. Technically impeccable (avoid the colorized version because Robert De Grasse’s black-and-white cinematography is extraordinary), the film makes use of a remarkable cast including an inspired Boris Karloff along with Bela Lugosi (relegated to a minor role).

An essential classic.