The Body Snatcher film poster (one sheet) – William Rose – 1945

The Body Snatcher film poster (one sheet) – William Rose – 1945

This is a reproduction of a 1945 film poster used to promote the American horror film, The Body Snatcher. The film was loosely based on the 1884  short story of the same name by Robert Louis Stevenson. The film was produced by Val Lewton and directed by Robert Wise. It combined the talents of two of the horror genre’s biggest stars in Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. It also stars Henry Daniell and Edith Atwater. The fabulous theatrical poster artwork by artist William Rose features a superb portrait of Boris Karloff as John Gray heading menacingly towards us. The gravestones in the top right-hand corner gives us a clue as to Karloff’s career choice as a grave digger and henchman for Dr Wolfe MacFarlane. Across the foot of the poster, Karloff is depicted dragging a female corpse out of its grave. It’s a fabulous horror film poster that looks incredible.

The Body Snatcher movie starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi

This was the first of a trio of films starring Boris Karloff and produced by Val Lewton. It was directed by Robert Wise. The other two films were 1945s Isle of the Dead and Bedlam from 1946. In our opinion, by far the best is The Body Snatcher. In fact, we think it is one of the great, overlooked horror films of the 1940s.

Top billing for The Body Snatcher film went to the famous horror team of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. However, in reality, Lugosi’s part was minor in the film and by many accounts, his part could easily have been played by any actor. Despite top billing going to Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, it is the performance of English-born actor Henry Daniell playing the role of Dr Wolfe MacFarlane that is the real star of the movie. Daniell and Karloff’s cat-and-mouse interaction throughout the film is the heart and soul of The Body Snatcher film.

Henry Daniell plays Dr Wolfe MacFarlane, a brilliant 18th-century London surgeon. As a young surgeon attempting to improve his profession as a doctor and advance medical procedures, MacFarlane requires the cadavers of dead people to experiment on. Enter Boris Karloff as John Gray, a hansom cab driver by day. Gray is secretly a grave robber by night and starts to provide corpses for MacFarlanes’s research.

It isn’t long before Gray begins blackmailing the aristocratic Daniell into silence. Eventually, Karloff turns to murder to supply fresh bodies to Daniell. The doctor can stand no more of this, and kills Karloff. But though Daniell may be able to escape the law, he cannot escape his conscience, which manifests itself in the voice of the dead Karloff, whose repeated mantra “NEVER get rid of me! NEVER get rid of me!” drives Daniell to his death. Although technically billed second, Lugosi has an exceptionally minor role in the film, though the scene he shares with Karloff is one of his best-ever screen moments. The Body Snatcher was the last of eight films in which Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi worked together on.

Burke and Hare the real Body Snatchers

The Body Snatcher is a decent adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1884 short story to the silver screen. It is based on real-life surgeon Robert Knox. For ten months in 1826 the Edinburgh doctor received some sixteen corpses, murdered expressly for Knox’s dissection table by William Burke and William Hare.

The story of Burke & Hare is a fascinating one borne out of greed on the part of the perpetrators and an obsession with advancing medical research. In the 1800s huge advances were taking place in science and medicine. However, doctors and physicians were only legally allowed to dissect the bodies of criminals who had been condemned to death. The introduction of the ‘Bloody Code’ in the late 17th Century, saw a dramatic increase in the number of crimes for which the death penalty could be imposed. The Judgement of Death Act 1823 saw the number of crimes punishable by death in Britain drop dramatically. Good news for crime, not so good for the medical schools.  Anatomical research was hampered as the supply of fresh cadavers on which to experiment became hard to come by.

An article written by Suzie Lennox on the historic uk website titled The Art of Bodysnatching, explains “At the turn of the 19th century, the number of fresh cadavers legally available to the anatomy schools of England and Scotland was woefully inadequate. In order to address this shortfall, a new class of criminal emerged. The bodysnatcher or ‘Sack ‘em up men’ worked tirelessly up and down the length of Britain, raiding churchyards where any new burial had taken place. Cadavers were swiftly removed, stripped of their grave clothes and hastily bundled into waiting carts or hampers ready to be shipped to their final destination” by those known as resurrectionists. There was a rise of these resurrection men… those who dug up recently buried bodies to sell for a large profit.

Ben Johnson’s article The Story of Burke and Hare on the same website continues “Instances of grave-robbing became so commonplace that relatives were known to watch over the recently dug graves of their dearly departed and watch towers were installed in cemeteries across the land. The ‘fresher’ the body, the more money it was worth, thus it didn’t take long before grave-robbing graduated to anatomy murder – murder committed with the sole intention of providing the remains for medical research and attracting a monetary reward.”

Enter William Burke & William Hare. Both men originated from Ulster in Northern Ireland and moved to Scotland to work on the Union Canal. Hare became the keeper of a lodging house in Edinburgh. Living on the same streett the pair met and became close friends. In December1827, an elderly army pensioner by the name of Old Donald, one of Hare’s tenants, died of natural causes. Angry that the deceased still owed £4 in rent, Hare devised a plan to steal the corpse from its coffin and sell it to recover the money he was owed.

Professor Robert Knox was a popular anatomy surgeon. Knox worked at Edinburgh’s revered medical college at Surgeon’s Square. The college was leading the world in anatomical studies and to make these advances, they required cadavers. Knox careless disregard over where the bodies came from was astounding. With Burke’s help, the pair sold the corpse to Knox for 7 pounds 10 shillings.

Encouraged by the ease with which they had made this money, Burke and Hare struck again in early 1828. This time it was a tenant that had fallen ill. Too impatient to see if he would actually die from his afflictions, Burke and Hare took it upon themselves to help him along by plying him with whisky and then suffocating him. This became Burke and Hare’s modus operandi as it left the body unmarked and undamaged. Their method of killing became known as ‘Burking’. Assisted by their common-law wives, they would entice other unknown wayfarers into the lodging house to ‘Burke’ them. In total Burke and Hare are said to have murdered at least 16 people for between £8-£10 ten pounds apiece, although the real total is likely to be a lot higher.

Burke and Hare were found out when neighbours and police discovered their murder of a local woman in 1828. Hare turned king’s evidence and, along with his wife, Margaret, testified against Burke and his wife, Helen. William Burke alone faced the noose. He was hanged at Lawnmarket in front of a crowd of 25,000 boisterous, cheering spectators. Perhaps fittingly, after being put on public display, his body was donated to science, to be dissected by medical students. A number of which took ghoulish souvenirs of his skin, even using it to bind books and card holders. Burke’s skeleton is still on display at Surgeon’s Hall in Edinburgh next to his death mask and the life mask of Hare’s face.

Hare, after serving his time in prison, was released in February 1829 and besieged by angry mobs. Eventually, using decoy carriages, police helped him reach the English border, and was never heard from again. It has been rumoured that he was thrown into a lime quarry by an angry mob and lived out his days as a blind beggar on the streets of London. Despite mass public outrage, Knox was also cleared of his involvement in the murders.  In his court confession, Burke exonerated Knox of all knowledge of the crimes, but some years passed before Knox lived down the condemnations of the public and the press. His reputation in ruins, Knox moved to London to try and salvage a career in medicine.

The Burke and Hare murders, followed swiftly afterwards by the 1831 murders committed by the London Burkers in Bethnal Green, led to the Anatomy Act 1832 which allowed doctors, anatomy lecturers, and medical students greater access to cadavers and allowed for the legal donation of bodies to medical science, effectively calling an end to the illegal body-snatcher trade.

An original copy of this fabulous horror poster graded C7 was on sale on ebay in 2021 with an asking price of £2,700. There’s no argument from us, if you can find an original copy and can afford to buy it, you’re on to a winner. There’s nothing like owning an original vintage poster and they often make a great investment. Chances are in just a few years you’ll be able to sell it for more than you paid for it. Unfortunately, for most of us, an investment, even at the entry-level prices of the collectible poster isn’t even close to being a possibility. This is where our stunning high-quality reproductions come into their own. They cost a fraction of an original and look absolutely fantastic when they’re framed and hung on your living room wall. This poster would look really cool in a home cinema room or a lodging house in Edinburgh. Go on! There’s no need to be scared, add a touch of vintage horror chic to your home decor. A real horror classic and a poster waiting to be snatched! Order yours today!