"These two characters (MacFarlane and Gray) are the "dark mirror" images of each other..." 

Continuing in our examination of the classic horror/thrillers produced by Val Lewton, we turn our attention to a lowly cabman in old Edinburgh who digs up corpses for profit...

By MATTHEW WANDERSKI

One of the three thrillers Boris Karloff made with producer-writer Val Lewton, The Body Snatcher (based on the Robert Lewis Stevenson story), opens with the killing of a loyal little guard dog and a subsequent graverobbing.  As the story unfolds, we learn that both graverobbing and murder are part of what keeps a brilliant surgeon and instructor named MacFarlane (Henry Daniell) and his students, chief among them Donald Fettes (Russell Wade), in business.  As MacFarlane and Fettes attempt to aid Mrs. Marsh (Rita Corday) and her crippled daughter Georgina (Sharyn Moffett), and the doctor continues a long-time secret love affair with his housekeeper Meg (Edith Atwater), a dark secret from MacFarlane's past, in the form of Cabman Gray (Karloff) threatens to ruin everything for them.

Can it be that Gray procuring bodies for MacFarlane now isn't all that unlike what they two did together for MacFarlane's own instructors, way back when?  And who was it who paid most dearly for past crimes?  As the doctor and the cabman battle for control over themselves and each other, with Fettes caught in the middle, the doctor's handyman, Joseph (Bela Lugosi) plans to profit from what he knows of the dirty dealings...  

One point of contention that even many great fans of this film often bring up is that Lugosi's small role in it is a waste of his talents.   I just don't agree.  No, it wasn't his finest hour, but it was far from his worst.  He has nothing to do at all until his showdown with Gray, but I think he handled that scene fairly beautifully.   I'm not too sure how much of this was by chance rather than by choice, but he really made me believe Joseph was this doomed, dumb guy without a clue regarding what he was up against.  It wasn't all just Karloff's impressive, easy menace, because, for me, Lugosi's "loser" quality is part of what made Karloff's presence so threatening in that scene.  I liked him just fine.

The main things I appreciated more than ever this viewing were certain aspects of the MacFarlane/Gray relationship.  Books on Lewton's work have emphasized this, the "negative mirror" that Gray serves as for MacFarlane.  When Gray says, "You and I have two bodies, aye, very different sorts of bodies.  But we are closer than if we were in the same skin..." he isn't kidding.  These two characters are the "dark mirror" images of each other.  Throughout the film we see the give and take of warmth and decency vs. coldness and evil in both of the men, almost as if they are trading off these qualities between each other. 

The doctor is a man of healing, but he only scares a crippled child rather than inspires her to help heal herself.  We are craftily led to believe that Fettes is MacFarlane's "angelic" counterpart in this regard, since we see him "woo" Georgina so successfully.  But this distracts us from the fact just a few moments prior, we saw that horrid graverobber and murderer Gray treating the child with kindness.  And indeed, ironically, it is Gray's rapport with Georgina in this scene that ultimately leads to Georgina making herself walk again.  Gray of all people inspires the girl to walk where the doctor can only fail to do so.

Yet clearly Gray is no pure-hearted man.  And MacFarlane is not completely void of human feeling, on the other hand.  When he cannot make the girl walk, his pride as a doctor is surely wounded, but there is nonetheless genuine anguish in his voice when he cries, "Nonsense! They will, they will!" after the girl pleads that her legs won't move.  And although he has no problem with buying bodies the cabman has robbed from their graves, he does make an attempt to break from Gray after he accepts that Gray has murdered the street singer -- even if this attempt is a failure.

Plus, it can be argued that his stance on grave robbing isn't completely inhumane or morally wrong.  I do believe the character is trying to further a science that will help improve lives.

Sometimes the flow of good and bad is not only between the two men but within each one as well.  One brilliant touch is that immediately after Gray kills Joseph, Brother the cat hops up to Gray, and, still looking down at the body with this incredible, death-like face, Gray nevertheless automatically reaches his hand out and strokes his feline friend.  This reminds us that the evil, murdering Gray has an ability to connect with animals and children that the healer MacFarlane could never hope to possess.  The man's horse is named Friend.

(Another irony I only caught on my umpteenth viewing:  Gray calls his horse "Friend" and his cat "Brother," and he seems to genuinely care for them.  Yet he has no regret in killing poor little, grave-guarding Robie, his master not one week dead.  And then, later,   he cold-heartedly and nonchalantly refers to the dog giving him trouble.)

A scene I spoke of earlier is a good example of the conflict within MacFarlane.  That anguished cry of his at the child's inability to walk comes right after he bullies the girl and scares her into this very inability!

This film is about social class.  Gray bonds with Joseph, if only as a ruse, two working men who must go into business together!   Meg bemoans her inescapable love for a man chained to his sense of class distinctions and hunger for a proper reputation motives that lead him to hide in shame the significance she holds for him.

Most interesting for me in terms of the themes of class in The Body Snatcher is the role that Fettes plays in the film.  Gray sort of bonds with him too, albeit in a weird and very incomplete way.  He is drawn to Fettes, I think, because he knows, consciously or unconsciously, that he and Fettes are both from a lower class than MacFarlane.  He plays Fettes off of MacFarlane, and he's more than willing to use the young student as a part of his money-grubbing schemes.   But I simply did not see in Gray's feelings for Fettes the kind of animosity he had for MacFarlane.  Further, I just got the feeling that he actually kind of liked Fettes, maybe even admired him. 

Look at the way he greets Fettes at his home vs. the way he greets Joseph.  For Joseph he puts on his mocking, fakey "jovial" tone that he also uses very often with MacFarlane--i.e., "I don't respect you, and I'm going to play you."  And while I don't know that I'd say he's fully, genuinely warm to Fettes, I simply don't see this "you contemptible sucker" tone in his scene with Fettes.  I think some of it has to do with the fact that Fettes is not a "dandy" doctor who would be willing to do anything to save himself from being punished for crimes he co-committed.  No, Fettes is a simple, decent guy from a poor background who wants to study and work and become a doctor.  I think Gray might've respected Fettes in ways he did not respect MacFarlane.

This gives Fettes a very interesting place to stand on the map of this film's ideas and themes.  He is somewhat caught between the worlds of MacFarlane and Gray.  (Worlds which, as I've discussed above, are themselves "caught" between their internal warring sides of good and evil.)   A poor, working person trying to become a doctor.  Repulsed by some of Gray's attitudes and deeds, but also by some of MacFarlane's.  Admiring of MacFarlane, admired by Gray.  I really like this character and the function he fulfills in the picture.

On the physical filmmaking side of things, I really, really took in just how wonderfully composed much so much of this film is.   Director Robert Wise and Director of Photography Robert de Grasse compose some beautiful shots and scenes in this one.  The murder of the street singer in the dark tunnel (under the dark bridge?) is justly hailed.  It's a gorgeous and effective piece of filmmaking.  But also notice how the tunnel (bridge?) serves as a frame of sorts for the murder victim.  Now, in the immediately preceding scene, after Fettes has left Gray's home, the cabman hears the singer's voice.   In another beautifully composed shot, we see Gray drawn to his window to seek out the voice's owner.  Coming at us until he is in close-up, he is framed by the window, just as in a few seconds his victim will be framed in darkness by stone...Just one little example of how this is such a beautiful, thoughtful film.

On the acting front, yes, Karloff was incredible, and I don't mean to denigrate his work in any way.  But Daniell strikes me even more in this film.  What an amazing actor.  All the complexity and conflict and humanity that I stumble for the words to illuminate above, he paints so gracefully with his performance.  His acting (to glom onto another art form here) is poetry in this film.  And to have him and Karloff going head-to-head!  Well, let's just say that I could die a very happy man after viewing this picture.

Also, while I've read criticism of some of the supporting cast, I rather liked them all.  I thought Rita Corday did just fine as Georgina's mom, although the role wasn't that swell.  And I think Edith Atwater was plain great as Meg.  I believed the love and frustration she felt for a complex, troubled and troubling man.  I also liked the straightforward, but not simple-minded or boring, performance of Russell Wade as Fettes.  As I have suggested above, he had much to convey in this role, and I think he did it quite nicely.  In the face of the emphasis on the two main characters and the grandness of the leads' performances, the audience is really likely to lose sight of this fine acting job, which would be a shame.

I've read particularly disappointed reactions to Sheryn Moffett's performance as Georgina.  Author Edmund G. Bansak, in Fearing The Dark, especially damns the performance by comparing it unfavorably to that of Ann Carter as Amy in The Curse Of The Cat People.  But I think Moffett's work is strong and empathic in this film.  And as for the comparison with Carter, there are several light years between giving a good, strong performance and giving one as good as Carter gave in Curse.

Simply put, Carter's Amy is, to my mind, one of the very best performances ever put on film.  It is one of the most beautifully realized, and more importantly, one of the most rare--unique--special performances I've ever seen in a film.  Something really alchemical, magical happened when Lewton, Wise and Von Fritsch worked with this actress.  Something brilliant and perhaps unexplainable. I think that at least 80% of the good-or-better film performances I've seen (and that is a lot of fine performances) aren't nearly as powerful as Carter's.  So, when someone tells me that a performance isn't as good as Carter's, she or he is by no means saying that the performance isn't necessarily rather quite good.

So many of Lewton's thrillers are about the encroachment of old, superstitious ways upon our modern, enlightened society.   One thing that makes The Body Snatcher special is that it is set at a time just before
that enlightenment is starting to occur.  In Bedlam, another Lewton/Karloff period piece we looked at previously, with it's depiction of the dawning of new ways of viewing human nature and mental illness, we see changes being made, as exemplified by the efforts of Nell Bowen and Mason Hannay. With The Body Snatcher, in looking at the medical profession and how it's research and education is made possible, Lewton takes one step further back, and tells us a tragic story that serves as one sign of the need for change.  We can believe that, after his experience with Gray and MacFarlane, Fettes might very well be one of those people who worked to bring about that change.

Thanks, Matthew, for "digging up" the "dirt" on this long-buried Karloff and Val Lewton classic.  If only Lugosi could have played the arrogant physician...oh, well!

Article copyright Matthew Wanderski

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