The Doctor and the Devils

In the Nineteenth Century, the renowned professor of anatomy Dr. Thomas Rock (Timothy Dalton) gives classes to neophyte medicine students in the local university. Dr. Rock uses his assistant Dr. Murray (Julian Sands) to buy corpses for his experiments from body snatchers paying a little fortune for the cadavers. When the alcoholic scum Robert Fallon (Jonathan Pryce) and Timothy Broom (Stephen Rea) overhear the conversation of grave-robbers about Dr. Rock, they decide to supply fresher corpses that worth more to the doctor, killing the poor inhabitants. Dr. Murray has unrequited feelings for the cockney whore Jennie Bailey (Twiggy) that usually hangs around with the also prostitute Alice (Nichola McAuliffe). When Dr. Murray discovers that Fallon has just sold the corpse of Alice, he seeks out the worthless Fallon and Broom to stop them from murdering Jennie. Will he arrive in time o save Jennie?

"The Doctor and the Devils" is a stylish drama, but not a horror movie. The costumes, sets and art direction are amazing, with a great reconstitution of the period with muddy streets and dirty people. The excellent cast has great performances, with great names of the British cinema and the story is also good. Unfortunately the screenplay is not good and does not offer the adequate pace for this film. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Inspired by the tale of 18th century British body-snatchers Burke and Hare and their benefactor Dr. Alexander Knox, noted Welsh writer and poet Dylan Thomas wrote the screenplays for The Doctor And The Devils in 1953 shortly before his death. Thirty-two years later Thomas screenplay, with work done to it by Ronald Harwood, was finally produced for the screen. That film stands up, twenty-five years after it was made, as a fine example of period drama brought splendidly to life.

The screenplay is brought to life wonderfully by its cast. Timothy Dalton, himself a Welshman, plays anatomist Dr. Thomas Rock as a man so passionate and desperate to learn more about the human body that he resorts to paying grave-robbers to do so. Dalton brings a strong presence to any scene he's in and his background as a Shakespearean actor is put to good use in scenes such as his opening of the lecture that starts the film or his final piece of narration as the film ends. Believably playing versions of the infamous body-snatchers are Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea as Robert Fallon and Timothy Broom, respectively. Both Pryce and Rea share fine chemistry on screen, making them believable as friends turned body-snatchers with Pryce playing up Falon's obsessiveness and Rea Broom's cowardice. The supporting cast is just as splendid as well including Julian Sands as Rock's troubled assistant Doctor Murray, Patrick Stewart as fellow anatomist Professor Macklin, Beryl Reid as one of the body-snatchers victims, Phyllis Logan as Rock's wife, Siân Phillips as Rock's troubled sister and the singer Twiggy as Murray's prostitute girlfriend in a performance that proves every once in a while a singer can actually act.

Period dramas rely heavily on their production values almost as much as their cast to bring them to life believably with this film being no exception. In particular the production design of Robert Laing and Imogen Richardson's costumes come together to bring to life the two clashing worlds of the film: the clean and cultured world of Doctor Rock and the dirty, grimy world of Fallon and Broom. The cinematography of Gerry Turpin and Norman Warwick helps to aid the production design and costumes as well while the editing of Laurence Méry-Clark bring pace, energy. Tension and even horror to those distinctly different worlds. The film is effectively scored by John Morris, including his haunting main title music. All this under the fine direction of Freddie Francis, himself an Oscar winning cinematographer in his own right. When put together these various elements insure that The Doctor And The Devils is well served by its production values.

The true building block of the film is of course its script. Written by Thomas, with work done by Ronald Harwood, the script is an intriguing fictionalization of the tale of 18th century British body-snatchers Burke and Hare and their benefactor Dr. Alexander Knox. Presumably this fictionalization was done by Thomas to allow him to play a bit loose with the facts and explore the themes he wanted to explore. As a consequence, the film is very much centered around Doctor Rock, a cultured man who believes in the advancement of knowledge at all costs as stated eloquently in the character's opening lines. Yet this belief leads him into murky moralistic waters when Fallon and Broom begin bringing him bodies that don't seem quite right and Rock turns a blind eye to the questionable actions of the two men despite the warnings of those around him. The film also looks at Fallon and Broom, men of the grim and filthier side of London who take up body-snatching and indeed murder for a bit of Doctor Rock's money. Or at least until things go wrong and their biggest attributes, Fallon's obsessiveness and Broom's cowardice, threatens to destroy them. It is the scripts exploration of how the cultured, nobly minded but possibly amoral Doctor Rock is, in his own words, brought down into the slime that bred Fallon and Broom that lies at the heart of the film rather then the murders and body-snatching of "the devils" he employed.

The Doctor And The Devils is not only an intriguing fictionalization of the tale of 18th century British body-snatchers Burke and Hare and their benefactor Dr. Alexander Knox but also a fine piece of period drama. This is thanks to the fine performances of its three lead actors, its supporting cast and its fine production values that brings the worlds of 18th century London to life. It is the Dylan Thomas (and Ronald Harwood) script though, with its exploration of the dangers of science without conscience and its consequences, that truly makes the film standout. Fact is stranger then fiction and, though fictionalized, The Doctor And The Devils proves that saying is still true twenty-five years on.

This is the third historical grave-robbing film I've watched after THE BODY SNATCHER (1945) and THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS (1960) – for the record, other cinematic versions of the same events out there are the Tod Slaughter vehicle THE GREED OF WILLIAM HART aka HORROR MANIACS (1948) and BURKE AND HARE (1972). While certainly the least of the three I'm familiar with (due perhaps to its graphic wallowing in the lurid details of the plot), it's pretty good for a product of its time (incidentally, the mid-1980s produced an unexpected but all-too-brief outburst of Gothic Horror which also included Franc Roddam's THE BRIDE [1985] and Ken Russell's Gothic [1986]).

The film was produced by Mel Brooks' company which had also been behind David Lynch's THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980) – which, incidentally, had marked Freddie Francis' own return to being a director of photography! Timothy Dalton as the overzealous doctor has a couple of good scenes in the first half, but he is clearly overshadowed by the more flamboyant turns of Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea as the nefarious night diggers. The impressive cast is completed by Twiggy, Sian Phillips, Beryl Reid, Julian Sands and Patrick Stewart; Twiggy (as another whore with a heart of gold) gets to sing as well and, predictably, medical student Sands falls for her charms.

I recall the film playing theatrically but, needless to say, I was too young to catch it back then. It's based on an original, unproduced script by celebrated Welsh playwright Dylan Thomas – adapted here by future Oscar-winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood; curiously, the names of the characters have been changed from the real ones of Knox, Burke and Hare – so had been the case with THE BODY SNATCHER, for that matter, but that one had the excuse of being based on a Robert Louis Stevenson novella! Apart from the starry cast and the film's undeniably evocative look, its main asset is a spare, unusual but effective score provided by longtime Mel Brooks collaborator John Morris.

The Dylan Thomas screenplay finally makes it to the screen with a few minor alterations. Based on the Burke and Hare vivisectionist murders, this film has a lot of the feel of the old Hammer movies though for the most part it is played quite a bit straighter. Credible performance by 1960's icon Twiggy. Very good, under-rated small feature.

The Doctor and The Devils is, ostensibly, a remake of the The Flesh and The Fiends (1960), which told of the nefarious true-life activities of infamous bodysnatchers and murderers Burke and Hare in the year 1828. In this telling of the story, the names have been changed, but the crimes remain the same: realising that good money can be made from supplying fresh cadavers to anatomical lecturers at a local medical school, a pair of wretched low-lifes turn to murder.

The pair of villains in this instance are Robert Fallon (Jonathan Pryce) and Timothy Broom (Stephen Rea), and the doctor who asks no questions about the origin of his corpses is Thomas Rock (Timothy Dalton). Julian Sands plays Rock's loyal assistant Dr. Murray, who falls for local prostitute Jennie Bailey (Twiggy). When Fallon brings the body of Jennie's close friend Alice to the school, the young doctor fears that Jennie is to be Fallon's next victim and rushes to her rescue.

The penultimate film from horror director Freddie Francis, The Doctor and The Devils is very much like a Hammer movie in look and feel, and will definitely appeal to fans of the 'studio that dripped blood'. However, despite plenty of atmosphere, good production values, an impressive roster of actors (which also includes Beryl Reid and Patrick Stewart), and a screenplay by noted Welsh writer/poet Dylan Thomas, the film is no match for The Flesh and The Fiends.

The pacing is off, with much of the film feeling like padding until such time as Murray is ready to leap to the rescue of Jennie, and, despite a fine cast, no-one is able to rival the brilliance of Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence, whose memorable turns gave the earlier film such a wonderful, darkly humorous edge. Dalton and company are all fine actors, but even they have their off days, and there are some really dodgy accents on display in this film (Reid is particularly bad and I was glad when her character was finally silenced).

That said, the film is worth a shot for fans of historical horror and those particularly interested in the crimes of Burke and Hare, although I highly recommend seeing The Flesh and The Fiends first.