The Body Snatcher is a 1945 American horror film directed by Robert Wise, based on the 1884 short story of the same name by Robert Louis Stevenson. Philip MacDonald adapted the story for the screen, and producer Val Lewton, credited as "Carlos Keith", modified MacDonald's screenplay. The film stars Boris Karloff as John Gray, a cab driver who moonlights as a grave robber, and later murderer, to illegally supply Dr. MacFarlane (played by Henry Daniell) with cadavers for his classes, and makes mention of Burke, Hare, and Dr. Knox, in reference to the West Port murders of 1828. Alongside Karloff and Daniell, the film's cast includes Russell Wade, Edith Atwater, and Bela Lugosi. It was the last film in which both Karloff and Lugosi appeared.
Plot[]
In Edinburgh in 1831, Mrs. Marsh brings her paraplegic daughter, Georgina, to see Dr. Wolfe MacFarlane at his home, where he has an office and an anatomy school. MacFarlane discovers a tumor pressing on Georgina's spinal cord, but insists he cannot perform the delicate operation to remove it because he is too busy teaching. After the Marshes leave, Donald Fettes tells MacFarlane that he cannot afford to continue his studies, so the doctor hires Fettes as his assistant.
Fettes moves into MacFarlane's house. He is awakened one night when John Gray, a cab driver and body snatcher, delivers a corpse for MacFarlane's students to dissect. Although he says he would rather quit medicine than be involved with such ghoulish business, MacFarlane convinces Fettes of the importance of the work and that, due to restrictions upon which corpses can legally be used for dissection, medical schools must work with men like Gray.
At a pub, Gray, who calls MacFarlane "Toddy", gets MacFarlane to begrudgingly buy him a drink, telling Fettes he is an old friend. Fettes asks MacFarlane to reconsider operating on Georgina, and Gray seems to convince MacFarlane by making a threatening reference to "some private reasons" between them. When MacFarlane later tells Fettes that he does not really intend to help Georgina, as he does not have a cadaver to study, Fettes goes to Gray and asks him to procure another corpse. As guards have been posted at the cemeteries because he killed a dog during the last body-snatching, instead of digging someone up, Gray murders a young street singer.
Recognizing the singer, who he had seen alive after he left Gray, Fettes tells MacFarlane that Gray must have killed her. He wants to contact the police, but MacFarlane cautions him that, if a crime was committed, he would be an accomplice, and Fettes helps get the body ready for the students. The conversation is overheard by Joseph, the janitor at MacFarlane's school.
MacFarlane performs Georgina's operation, and she recovers well, but still cannot walk. Frustrated, MacFarlane gets drunk at the pub, where Gray torments him by saying his studies with Dr. Knox taught him about dead bodies, not how to heal people. When Gray reminds MacFarlane that he helped keep the doctor from becoming involved in the trial of Burke and Hare, MacFarlane tells Gray that he is no longer afraid and demands Gray leave him alone.
Joseph visits Gray to blackmail him about the murder of the street singer, and Gray acts agreeable, before smothering Joseph to death. Gray delivers the body to MacFarlane as a "gift", and, when MacFarlane finds it, he tells Fettes to prepare Joseph for dissection and goes to deal with Gray. Fettes feels trapped, but Meg Cameron, MacFarlane's housekeeper and secret wife, tells Fettes about MacFarlane's past and convinces him to leave.
MacFarlane tries to bribe Gray to stop tormenting him, but Gray rejects the offer, saying he enjoys having a great man under his thumb. Enraged, MacFarlane beats Gray to death. He tells Meg that he is finally rid of Gray, but she has doubts.
The next day, Fettes sees Georgina stand up. He rushes to tell MacFarlane, but Meg says the doctor is in Penicuik, where he went to sell Gray's horse and cab after using the body for dissection. Fettes takes MacFarlane's carriage and gives MacFarlane the news in a tavern. A group of mourners enter, and MacFarlane, his spirits high, decides to dig up their relative's body so he can teach his students to perform "miracles".
Fettes and MacFarlane seat the unearthed corpse, wrapped in a tarp, between them in MacFarlane's carriage. As they drive through the dark and the heavy rain, MacFarlane begins to hear Gray taunting him. He stops and orders Fettes to get down and shine a lamp on the body, and when he uncovers the head, he sees Gray's face. The horse bolts, leaving Fettes behind, and MacFarlane struggles with Gray's corpse, which seems to be trying to grasp him. After separating from the horse, the carriage tumbles down a steep hill. When Fettes reaches the wreck, he finds MacFarlane's dead body next to the corpse of the woman he and MacFarlane dug up.