The Body Snatcher (1945) on Netflix
Approved19451h 18mHorrorThriller
In 1831 Edinburgh, Donald Fettes becomes assistant to Wolfe MacFarlane, whose anatomy school relies on corpses from cabman John Gray. Fettes asks MacFarlane to operate on a girl who cannot walk.
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- Netflix3.4/5
- IMDb7.3/1011,321 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Trailer
Plot summary
Mrs. Marsh brings her daughter Georgina to Dr. Wolfe MacFarlane, who runs an anatomy school at his Edinburgh home in 1831. MacFarlane finds a tumor pressing on the girl's spinal cord but says teaching leaves him no time for the operation. Donald Fettes, a student who cannot afford to continue his studies, becomes MacFarlane's assistant and moves into the house. One night the cabman John Gray delivers a corpse for the students to dissect, and MacFarlane argues that the law leaves medical schools no other supply, though Fettes wants no part of it. Gray treats MacFarlane as an old acquaintance and reminds him of private reasons between them. When Fettes presses him to help Georgina, MacFarlane answers that he has no cadaver to study.
Cast
- Aina Constantas Maidservant
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Body Snatcher (1945)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Boris Karloff left Universal Pictures after calling House of Frankenstein (1944), with its monster, Dracula, the Wolf Man and a hunchback, a "monster clambake", and came to work for producer Val Lewton, crediting Lewton with rescuing him "from the living dead" and restoring his soul.
SPOILER
Censors required cuts in Ohio, New York, Kansas and Pennsylvania; English censors removed the sequence showing Gray's apparition near the end of the film; and British Columbia banned it outright until an appeal let it pass.- Shooting was tense because executive producer Jack J. Gross sent Val Lewton into production with what Lewton considered too small a budget, causing friction between the two men.
