Really Surprised!

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

"The Body Snatcher" from 1945, is the greatest horror film from producer Val Lewton.Boris Karloff certainly had a character to get his acting chops into, in the title role. Rarely has he played such an evil character. The way he is by different turns, sly, cunning, ruthless and vindictive makes for a fine performance from Karloff.Henry Daniell offers excellent support. This film was the last time those two horror legends Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi would work together. The latter has a handful of brief scenes but the plot allows the two actors one last time to share a scene. It is a highlight as well.The dialogue is better than usual and the director Robert Wise does a fine job.The film works best as a horror film of atmosphere and suggestion.

Boris Karloff exudes depravity as an unscrupulous grave robber in "Curse of the Cat People" director Robert Wise's third film "The Body Snatcher," an atmospheric adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's short story scripted by Phillip MacDonald and producer Val Lewton under the pseudonym Carlos Keith. Cast as Cabman John Gray, Karloff is thoroughly black-hearted. Gray gets into trouble early when he wields a shovel to kill a faithful canine standing guard over his deceased master's grave site. Vintage horror icon Bela Lugosi lurks about the periphery as a caretaker to Henry Daniell's dubious physician Dr. Wolfe 'Toddy' MacFarlane. The premise focuses on the dire shortage of cadavers for physicians-in- training to dissect. Deplorably enough, doctors must turn to dastards like Gray to obtain fresh bodies, exhumed without authorization as soon as they can without the authorities capturing them. The names of notorious Burke and Hare are referenced to narrow the time of the story down to the year 1828 when these two infamous fiends murdered 16 innocents and sold their remains to Dr. Robert Knox for dissection in his anatomy classes. If mention of these men weren't sufficient to cement the similarity to Stevenson's criminals, the use of the same setting Edinburgh, Scotland and Dr. Knox as Dr. MacFarlane's mentor drives the point home plainly enough. The action focuses on a little girl, Georgina (Sharyn Moffett), who is confined to a wheelchair because she was injured in a carriage accident and can no longer walk. Georgina hates MacFarlane's atrocious bedside manner, but she warms immediately to a financially strapped medical student, Donald Fettes (Russell Wade), who treats her with kindness. Initially, MacFarlane laments that he cannot operate because his teaching position prevents him from practicing medicine since he is engaged primarily in the teaching of it. Nevertheless, Dr. MacFarlane performs a procedure on Georgina, but she still refuses to walk. Meantime, Joseph (Bela Lugosi of "Dracula") decides to blackmail Gray because he knows that the latter murdered a blind street singer. Naturally, Gray doesn't let Joseph's threats unhinge him. Instead, he strangles Joseph to death. Meantime, the psychological paralysis that keeps Georgina from walking ends when she hears a horse and stands up on her own power. The guilt-ridden MacFarlane tries to bribe Gray so that he can be rid of the man, but Gray refuses to be bought off. Consequently, MacFarlane murders Gray himself, but he pays the ultimate price himself during a storm when the horses bolt and take the wagon with MacFarlane in it over a cliff. "The Body Snatcher" represented the eighth and final film that co-starred the two legends of horror Karloff and Lugosi.

Simpleton student doctor Russell Wade (Fettes) is American and speaks in a naive manner that has you astounded he can make it through to medical school. Anyway, it's 1831 Edinburgh – or Edinburrow as Wade pronounces it – and the Hare and Burke case is fresh in everyone's minds. Hare and Burke murdered people to provide bodies for medical research. Henry Daniell (MacFarlane) is the doctor that Wade is assigned to and stays with during his training. Bodies are needed for dissection purposes – enter cabman Boris Karloff (Gray). Karloff provides a service for Daniell. These two characters have a history that needs resolving… The story is about grave robbing and murder as a business. The two main characters – Karloff and Daniell are excellent in their roles. Karloff is scary and funny and Daniell is funny and flippant. They, along with some memorable scenes are the good points of the film. These scenes include the final nightmare cab ride that Daniell takes and the scene where servant Bela Lugosi approaches Karloff to blackmail him. Bad move.Unfortunately, the film is let down by some overbearingly awful sentimentality. We get a terrible singer that is allowed to sing on more than one occasion. The film spends way too much time with her awful, annoying voice and stupid songs. When Karloff gets in his cab one evening to pursue her we get what is the most satisfying moment of the film. Ha ha ha. My wife and I laughed out aloud at that point. Great moment. However, we also get a sentimental story about a crippled child and some nonsense about a white horse that doesn't work and really annoys. You know the kind of thing – will the crippled child walk again when she sees the white horse – guess what..? …I'm gonna puke. So, the film loses marks for this insulting crap.So, overall, the film is OK, let-down by an awful child actress and an awful singer. They are, unfortunately, in the film for long enough to ruin the whole experience. Karloff is great, though.

(46%) A creaky old grave robbing era horror that has lost any power it once had to scare or remotely shock, but this is still a halfway decent watch. Forget about this being a Boris Karloff picture as Henry Daniell is the main focus of attention here, and to be fair Daniell was a good actor in his time, and he's fine here as a pioneering surgeon at the heart of the picture. Bela Lugosi is given a small shoe string role, but at least he plays a part in one of the better, more memorable scenes of the whole movie. This isn't a must watch by any means as it really lacks bite, but the performances are worthy and there are much worse chillers out there.