El ladrón de cadáveres

Edimburgo, 1831. Donald Fettes, un joven estudiante de medicina, llega a la mansión del doctor MacFarlane, un prestigioso cirujano y profesor, para servirle como ayudante. El siniestro cochero John Gray es quien le proporciona clandestinamente al médico los cadáveres que utiliza en sus clases y en sus investigaciones, cadáveres frescos procedentes de las tumbas del cercano cementerio. Gray aprovechará la situación para chantajear a MacFarlane, poniendo así, inconscientemente, su vida en peligro.

TRAILER

In Edinburgh in 1831, Dr. Wolfe MacFarlane runs a medical school where Donald Fettes is a student. Fettes is interested in helping a young girl who has lost the use of her legs. He is certain that MacFarlane's surgical skills could be put to great use but he is reluctant to do so. The good Dr. MacFarlane has a secret that soon becomes all too obvious to young Fettes, who has only recently been promoted as his assistant: he has been paying a local cabbie, John Gray, to supply him with dead bodies for anatomical research. Gray constantly harasses MacFarlane and clearly has a hold over him dating to a famous trial many years before where Gray refused to identify the man for whom he was robbing graves. Fettes isn't aware of any of this but soon realizes exactly how Gray obtains the bodies they use in their anatomy classes.

"Una lección de cómo crear una atmósfera malsana y opresiva, repleta de signos inquietantes"

(Miguel Ángel Palomo: Diario El País)

Director: Robert Wise
Intérpretes: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Daniell, Edith Atwater, Russell Wade, Rita Corday, Sharyn Moffett, Donna Lee
Guión: Philip MacDonald & Val Lewton (Historia: Robert Louis Stevenson)
Música: Roy Webb
Fotografía: Robert De Grasse (B/N)
Título Original: The Body Snatcher
Año: 1945
Duración: 78 min.
País: E.E.U.U.
Género: Terror