The Body Snatcher (1945)

The Body Snatcher is a classic example of a film that has all the ingredients on paper, but which never comes to life.

The screenplay is based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson. The film stars no less than Boris Karloff as the title character, John Gray, a shifty cab driver who has a sideline sourcing and delivering dead bodies for top surgeon Wolfe "Toddy" MacFarlane (Henry Daniell, best known as Goebbels parody Garbitsch in Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator). Bela Lugosi has a small role as MacFarlane's other cadaver consultant, but the fact that he barely registers should be an alarm bell for the rest of the film.

Producer Val Lewton had previously given us Cat People, The Curse of the Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie. These films, despite their lurid titles, have an unsettling mix of atmosphere and ambiguity. This kept the viewer intrigued and on edge. Director Robert Wise would go on to have an eclectic career, from editing montages for Citizen Kane, to directing everything from low key noir classics like The Set Up to big budget epics like The Sound of Music and Star Trek: The Motion Picture

 

There are some interesting ideas in The Body Snatcher, particularly with regard to class, and how those at MacFarlane's level feel like they can get away with flouting the law. But, largely it is talk, endless talk, with little or nothing left to the imagination of the viewer, the central strength of Lewton's former work. One for the Karloff / Lewton / Lugosi completists only.