The Body Snatcher(1945):
Today is October 26th! My birthday. After a long day of gifts, friends, food and fun I think I'll kick back and review my favorite horror film of all time, Val Lewton & Robert Wise's The Body Snatcher. Well, okay, it's just one of my favorite horror films, but very close to the top.
One of the true masterpieces of horror cinema, in many ways it may just be the most literate and mature of them all. When trying to gauge the intelligence of fans of classic horror films, The Body Snatcher is a great way to filter the men from the boys. The true film connosieur appreciates the film's melancholy and eerie beauty, the slack-jawed ''monster kid'' whines about how there isn't a monster and a second-billed Bela Lugosi only has a small throaway role. Not that I'm a Lewton snob by any means, and I don't even want to get into the "Blatancy Vs Power of Suggestion" debate, but there's a reason that the Universal films are dismissed and looked on as campy B-movies even though many of them were A-movies, while the Lewton films, which literally were B-movies, are considered arthouse masterpieces up there with Fellini and Bergman.
Part of the reason for the film's intellectual appeal and praise is the fact that none of the film's story really hinges on frightening the viewer, but in upsetting them and making them think long into the night about the nature of destiny and the positive and negative qualities of Good and Evil. It's a film about choices and the crucial points in our lives when we have to make them. Put simply, it's a Coming of Age story.
Russell Wade stars as an impoverished but ambitious young medical student named Donald Fettes, who idolizes his mentor, the coldly rational college professor and anatomist Dr. MacFarland (Henry Daniell). Our young protagonist is thrilled to get work as the professor's assistant, but soon his illusions of MacFarland's perfect life are very violently shattered by realizing how in thrall MacFarland is to the man who is apparently his servant, the deceptively personable cab driver John Gray(Boris Karloff, in what is easily his best performance next to Bride of Frankenstein and Targets), who also doubles as a grave robber. Fettes quickly realizes how the two men's relationship goes much deeper than ordinary blackmail.
Superficially, Gray & MacFarland couldn't be more different. MacFarland is a wealthy, respectable and cultured scholar and gentleman who can hold an entire class in rapture with his simplest lectures and hobknob with higher society. Gray is a sleazy criminal and murderer who inhabits every dive in town and talks to his animals when he gets lonely. Conversely however, each man also boasts qualities the either sorely needs. When it comes to dealing with people who aren't pre-disposed to hang on his every word, MacFarland is a total deadweight who can't motivate or comfort another person to save his life, and when it comes to independence and self-assertiveness, he is dependent on the actions of everyone around him. There's a great scene where he tries to persuade a crippled little girl to walk and makes a total ass of himself. Gray however, while neither cultured or suave, is an extremely gifted conversationalist and, in all ways pretty much, a people person. He can seem polite, attentive, philosophical and even endearing. He also gets along fine with children and animals. He also has a great skill MacFarland doesn't, he can read people with just one glance and have them totally figured out, and then sit back with the knowledge that he can peel them like a fucking grape whenever he feels like it. Whereas MacFarland isn't willing until too late to address his own shortcomings due to his conscience, and when he does it's often taken to the extreme, Gray however, never knows when to quit because he has no conscience.
Basically the men are both polar opposites in every respect, like Hyde split from Jekyll, but with each posessing some quality the other lacks, the 'evil' actually having fairly admirable ones, as if one sold one of their qualities to each other. Interesting then, that we learn that Gray is responsible fore very successful endeavor in MacFarland's life, while it was MacFarland's rejection and then dependency on Gray that pushed the cab driver into becoming the monster he is. This brings them both further and further into conflict as they both realize one can't function without the other, and naturally it doesn't end well for either of them. The film ends in the pouring rain, both antagonists long dead, as Fettes quietly sets off down the road, lost in thought, the audience wondering what path he will take after seeing these two obsessed men destroy one another. Simple, but genuinely soul-stirring and profound.
Of course, that's all well and good, but what makes the film of course is the acting. Wade is the perfect naive but likeable young protagonist, a moral center and identification figure for the audience whom the audience grows with, learns with and ultimately is left to cast their own conclusions just as he is. Henry Daniell gives one of the most outstanding performances I've ever seen from such an otherwise obscure actor. It's the best portrayal I've ever seen of a man who realizes how much of his life and success is a sham, but continues to deny it and dig himself impossibly deeper. As for Karloff? Well, let's just say that the fact that he was never nominated for some kind of award for his performance here is justification enough to go on a shotting spree at the AFI.
Mention must also be made of Bakaleinikoff's musical score, which is just amazing. Bakaleinikoff was also instrumental(no pun intended) in Franz Waxman's score for 1935's Bride of Frankenstein, Karloff's other greatest triumph. Director Robert Wise's use of shadows and expert timing also help immeasurably.
So there you have it, a truly haunting and thought-provoking motion picture, marvellously acted, directed and that never wears out it's welcome. A film I am proud to consider one of my favorites.