October 27
#24 The Body Snatcher (1945)

In our Val Lewtonathon, we now enter phase 2, or Phase Karloff.  The Body Snatcher in a strange way feels like a more complete film, or a more fleshed-out story, than the previous Lewton entries; based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson, it’s sharply focused, and delivers more of the expected ghoulish thrills (notably in the climax), while retaining the classiness of the earlier films.  What it loses in the bargain, perhaps, is the elusive and haunting quality of the earlier, more psychoanalytical pictures such as Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, and The Seventh Victim.  Nevertheless, it’s a fine horror film, and the script, acting, and directing (by Robert Wise) are all at a level which the genre would not regain until Hammer Studios gave us Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

Karloff here shines in his best role since inhabiting the monster of Frankenstein, playing the “body snatcher” Gray, who provides fresh corpses for medical instructor MacFarlane (Henry Daniell, excellent). It’s easy to understand why the horror icon would turn down offers to appear in the glut of Universal Studios monster mash pictures that were increasingly aimed at children, in favor of joining the company of actors in the employ of Lewton. Indeed, The Body Snatcher is most definitely for adults: it begins with the killing of a dog, and progresses to the murder of a child and finally an adult or two; it also has a subtle, at times deliberately ambiguous character in MacFarlane (the real protagonist of the film), who somehow manages to invoke our sympathy even after he’s condoned some of Gray’s most despicable acts. But he and Gray are doomed to be forever entwined, each mutually exploiting the other – he needs the bodies, Gray needs the money. As Gray turns to killing to keep the business afloat, MacFarlane’s morals begin a fast downward slide. Is he sanctioning these crimes, or just making the best out of a bad situation? He’s unable to extricate himself. Gray relishes the power he holds over MacFarlane; it gives him a kind of status, and The Body Snatcher is as much about issues of class as med-school ethics. MacFarlane can excuse the violation of graves if the deceased were low-class; he can excuse the murder of a young girl because she was a vagrant. (Her murder, depicted only through the sudden absence of sound – her singing cut short at the end of a dark street – is the film’s most shocking moment.)

The conscience of the film, MacFarlane’s assistant Fettes (Russell Wade), provides the obvious counter-arguments. One suspects the film would be stronger without his angelic presence, but critically, he too is morally compromised: he’s indirectly responsible for the young girl’s death, since it’s his visit to Gray which prompted it, and almost inexplicably he tags along for one final graveyard visit at film’s end. But the central moral conundrum is presented in the case of a little girl who cannot walk because of a growth near her spine. MacFarlane speculates he can cure her through an operation, but more research would be needed, which means more bodies. Fettes goes to Gray, who then, to provide a quick corpse, commits the murder of the vagrant girl. Essentially, the life of a lower-class child has been taken for the benefit of a higher-class one. However, when the operation is performed and still the patient cannot walk, MacFarlane gives himself over to his dark side, first by confronting Gray more violently. Their struggle is depicted from the perspective of Gray’s ubiquitous cat. We see, in shadows cast on the wall, one figure break a chair over the other’s head, and then pummel him savagely with the broken chair-leg. It’s startling to learn that this is MacFarlane, but then, that’s the point. Now he has become Gray.

I would be remiss to not mention the presence of the other major horror icon of the day, Bela Lugosi, who plays the MacFarlane household servant, a withered man who makes a feeble and doomed attempt to blackmail Gray. For horror fans, seeing these two actors share screen time is akin to watching Pacino and DeNiro face one another in Heat.  (Karloff and Lugosi had previously shared a bill in 1934’s The Black Cat.) Yet Lugosi’s stock had fallen considerably by 1945, and on the poster it’s Karloff who gets his name above the title. Indeed, in seeing them together, Karloff acts circles around Lugosi, though it’s a bit unfair to point this out given the imbalance of roles: Karloff has the juicier part. Lugosi, however, is nonetheless well cast here, and although his character is deliberately pathetic, he’s also moving. He’s so outmatched by Gray that you watch in anxious anticipation; as Karloff moves about the frame, dominating the huddled Lugosi, refilling his glass with liquor, promising him the world while the shadows seem to darken, the dread deepens. Horror, as a friend once pointed out to me, is all about anticipating the inevitable. In this case, it’s about waiting for Karloff to strike–and oh, that poor cat, who always has to watch.