THE BODY SNATCHER (1945) *** Permeated by a foreboding water rising and getting dangerously close to going under feel. Brilliant Robert Louis Stevenson treatment of ethical ambiguity, Machiavellian ethos applied to the medical arts. Grave robbers you know, subjects for research. The scariest part is that you can't tell exactly where they're going wrong. It's a bit irritating to see Bela Lugosi in such a peripheral role, and just to rub it in there's a fight scene where he has to pretend that Boris Karloff is beating him up. At this point you understand that it's not going to be an epic of cinematic realism. Also fine performances by Henry Daniell and Edith Atwater. Karloff is, for this film only, even better than the always-brilliant Lugosi (even if he couldn't really beat him up) and I don't enjoy saying so. Of course if they had just given Bela the part... The climactic scene with Daniell in the howling Scottish rain, and horses hoofs accelerating ever faster.
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