Cheap Body Snatcher (Video) (Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi) (Robert Wise) Price

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Customer Reviews of Body Snatcher

A literate and creepy masterpiece.
If you've ever wondered how good an actor Karloff was (without make-up), this movie is a must-see. Henry Daniell plays a 19th-century Edinborough doctor of questionable moral scruples, and Karloff plays the cabdriver who "assists" him in his efforts. The movie is based on Robert Louis Stevenson short story, and has a variation on the Jekyll/Hyde motif. Bela Lugosi makes a brief appearance as a not-quite-successful blackmailer. Five cheers for Karloff and Val Lewton for this literate, entertaining, and chilling masterpiece.

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A Classic Horror Film
A great tale of the macabre world of doctors who arrange for the pilfering of graveyards for dead bodies to be used in medical dissection, this film is not terrifying so much as it is creepy.
Set in Scotland in the 1830's, this is classic Hollywood horror. The tension of the story itself sets you on edge, rather than the gory special effects which are commonplace today.

Although Boris Karloff was the box office draw when this film was released in 1945, with Bela Lugosi playing a lesser supporting role, the one who made the movie for me was Henry Daniell, the brilliant character actor who plays Dr. MacFarlane, a man torn between conscience and the need to expand the knowledge of the human body available to medical science. Karloff plays the coachman who does MacFarlane's dirty work of graverobbing, a humble footman who relishes the power of the secret he holds over the doctor. MacFarlane sees the graverobbing and Karloff both as necessary evils to be dispensed with at the earliest opportunity, but his old friend the coachman has other plans...

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a small, great performance hidden in lewton classic
so much has been written (and deservedly so) on the performances of daniel and karloff that a little space is needed for a smaller role; that of bela lugosi.
for once, he is not made to just 'play bela'.
he is required to act here in the role of devious, mentally handicapped servant.
his performance is a nuanced one and a powerful example of just how good an actor he was and, unfortunately, how wasted he was.
his delivery is methodically slow, almost painfully delivered.
it seems in smaller roles lugosi really shined.
this role is an excellent example, as is his equally small role as bela the fortune teller in the wolfman, of just how effective a character actor he truly was.
and of course his indisputably greatest role was as ygor in son of frankenstein (yes, much more than dracula. in that role he was far better in abbott and costello meet frankenstein).
for great lugosi i suggest son of frankenstein, the black cat
( the edgar g ulmer one with karloff, not the later one) white zombie, aboot and costello meet frankenstein, the wolfman, the body snatcher, chandu the magicican, and the thirteenth chair, pretty much in that order.
hopefully, this and letwons other films will see a dvd release soon.