Boris Karloff attained fame playing the monster in three Frankenstein movies. He could have continued playing the dead creature. It might have made the succeeding films better. He made a career decision and it worked. Karloff did a succession of movies. Some worked and some didn’t. His career took a serious uptick, when he began working with Val Lewton. He was the head of the newly formed RKO horror unit. The films that Karloff did maintained his status as a horror star.
The Body Snatcher is one of those RKO Karloff movies. It was based on the Robert Louis Stevenson story. The screenplay was written in part by Val Lewton. Boris Karloff plays Cabman John Gray. His side job is stealing bodies from graves. He receives payment for this from Dr. Wolf (Toddy) McFarlane (Henry Daniel). Gray performs this service, so the doctor can keep his anatomy school in Edinburgh going. A student, Donald Fettes, (Russell Wade) knows what is going on, and assists in this horrible business. His thinking and Toddy’s is it’s for the good of science.
Dr. McFarlane begins to have a conscience about the horrible thing he is doing. It is at this point when Karloff steals the movie. John Gray confronts the doctor. He tries to use the logic that they are working for the same end. Karloff does this while smiling. He seems like the devil, telling somebody that their soul is his. Toddy is not moved, and says he will turn Gray into the police. Gray says he will simply explain the doctor’s involvement in their heinous crimes. He effectively blackmails the doctor. Toddy later finds out Gray means what he says. He murders an assistant, Joseph, (Bela Lugosi). Joseph was going to blackmail Gray. Lugosi has only a small part, but he is good in it.
This movie mainly takes place in dark pubs. dimly lit streets and the basement where the stolen bodies are stored. It has a bright spot of a crippled girl named Georgina Marsh, (Sharon Moffett),who never gives up hope. She has a despairing mother, (Rita Corday), who has lost hope that her child will ever walk. Donald Fettes believes that Dr. McFarlane can perform successful surgery on the girl. This is the spark that lights a fire that gives Toddy his conscience.
The light as with most of these movies becomes dim. The doctor knows what he is doing is wrong, but can’t stop himself. He blames Gray for what he has become. Gray tauntingly says that they are one and the same. Their viewpoints on medicine conflict. This leads them to the confrontation of their viewpoints. The main point of The Body Snatcher is that two wrongs don’t make a right.
The Body Snatcher borrows from German expressionist horror films. This is also something early universal films like Frankenstein did. It is a good look and feel. Robert Wise is responsible for the look. This is his second film. He started out with low budget horror movies. Some directors careers may have stalled or halted. That wasn’t the case for Wise. He succeeded admirably. He made groundbreaking films in Science fiction, horror, westerns and musicals. He has a way with a camera. The conversation between Toddy and Gray focuses on Karloff’s expression, with his evil grin. He also shows the despair and anger in Dr. McFarlane’s face. He has the appropriate lighting for this scene, and throughout the movie. This is key to a movie’s visual look. Robert Wise’s work on low budgeted films, was a stepping stone to his success.
The Body Snatcher is a different type of horror movie. It is like all of the Val Lewton produced movies. The terror is more psychological-like a Hitchcock film. It has more than a little in common with Shadow of a Doubt. Any horror film from RKO is good. The Body Snatcher has a good look and feel and quality acting.