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SYNOPSIS | REVIEW | PRODUCTION NOTES | TRIVIA | PRESS | QUOTES | KIM NEWMAN ARCHIVE | MEDIA
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Corridors of Blood (1962)
PRODUCTION SCRIPT DIRECTION PHOTOGRAPHY EDITING AND POST-PRODUCTION MUSIC SOUND MAKE-UP AND COSTUMES DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION OTHER SOURCES CAST co-starring with and and PLOT SUMMARY
Dr Bolton is a humanitarian surgeon, disturbed by the inhuman way that operations are performed on hapless patients who are invariably still conscious when the surgery begins. Determined to find a better way, he hires body snatchers Black Ben and Resurrection Joe to steal corpses for his experiments into ways of reducing the suffering. But when the two grave robbers learn of Bolton's addiction to morphine gas, the begin to blackmail him... CAPSULE REVIEWS Made in England as a rival to the newly emerged Hammer
studios the film sat on the shelf for four years before getting a release.
A sort of Burke and Hare story but focusing much more on a variant of
Knox the man they supplied. It lacks the grim authenticity of the The
Flesh and the Fiends (1959) made the following year and
it doesn't have the colour, shocks and verve of the early Hammer Frankensteins.
Karloff is good
in the bland central role. Lee
is one of the grave robbers but is hardly in it. Corridors of Blood is a strange
film, which seeks to mix historical fact with horror, a brave effort
that only partly works. The film works mainly due to the strength of
the performances from Lee
and De Wolff, who are excellent as the repulsive grave robbers, lending
the film an air of seedy degradation while Karloff
balances this with a thoughtful performance of subtle pathos. Gordon
himself has acknowledged the indecisive nature of the film and regrets
that audiences were confused, expecting a full on horror but getting
something entirely different instead. This is not to belittle the film,
however, as it has much to commend it - the excellent supporting cast,
for example, and Day's excellent direction. It's attempts to do something
a little different with the genre was a brave move and there has been
a tendency to overlook the film somewhat in the past. (Full
Review) AVAILABILITY
USA CENSORSHIP HISTORY
UK TIMELINE
1962 1987 1992 1998 2007 ALTERNATIVE TITLES
The Doctor From Seven Dials - shooting
title REFERENCES
MAGAZINES Daily Cinema no.8661 (14 September 1962)
p.6 (UK) Dark Side October/November 1994 pp.15-16
(UK) Exploitation Journal vol. 2 nos.2 - 3:
Bloody British Special (1995) p.7 (USA) Film Daily vol.122 no.120 (24 June 1963)
p.7 (USA) Film Index no.31 (1975) p.113 (Australia) Kine Weekly no.2867 (13 September 1962)
p.20 (UK) Monthly Film Bulletin vol.29 no.346 (November
1962) p.153 (UK) BOOKS Hoffman's Guide to SF, Fantasy and Horror Movies
1991 - 1992 p.79 KEYWORDS
addiction, morphine, drugs, grave-robbers, resurectionists, surgery, surgeons, doctors
Last Updated: 15 October, 2008
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Country
of Origin: UK