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| From http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large /1-corridors-of-blood-boris-karloff-1958-everett.jpg |
Director: Robert Day
Screenplay: Jean Scott Rogers
Cast: Boris Karloff (as Dr.
Thomas Bolton); Betta St. John (as Susan); Francis de Wolff (as Black Ben); Adrienne
Corri (as Rachel); Christopher Lee (as Resurrection Joe)
Synopsis: In 1840s London, renowned surgeon Dr. Thomas Bolton (Karloff) experiments with the
possibility of surgery without pain, attempting to develop an anaesthesia gas.
When his first public demonstration fails, he becomes despondent and starts a
new experiment with an opium based gas for a stronger effect. The gas slowly
robs him of his free will, devoted to his experiments to an obsessive state but
becoming an addict at the same time, slowly becoming less competent at his
daily work as the narcotic effects his mind. It also leads to nightly stupors
he cannot remember, leading him into the clutches of Black Ben (de Wolff), a malicious inn keeper who
with Resurrection Joe (Lee) offer
fresh corpses to the hospitals for dissection, Bolton perfect to falsify the
documents for a natural death. |
| From https://goregirl.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/corridors-of-blood4.png |
Corridors of Blood has title perfect for a drive-in b-movie. But it
has a double meaning here - it's a literal metaphor for a period before anaesthesia
was developed, where the corridors were literally soiled, sawdust on the
surgery room floor to soak up the gore during the operations. As someone who
spent one term of a university history course studying medical history in the
British Isles, it was a pleasant surprise to find out this not the mad
scientist film I expected, but one directly placed in a part of history where
body snatchers and the rocky beginnings of medical advancement existed. Whether
this film qualifies as an actual horror film or not is up to debate, as much an
issue as with whether it's also a drama or not, entrenched both but not
completely. It's too lurid to be fully viewed as a sensible, sombre minded
drama, but the horror is more in the London depicted in its germ ridden,
poverty filled state. This was a period where graveyards would become so
crowded bodies piled in together in the same grave, even if it meant digging
them back up, to save space. A time the Thames became so filled with faecal
matter and waste the Houses of Parliament suffered from the smell projected off
it during a hot early afternoon. The horror is in death as a matter-of-fact acceptance
of life, especially in a time before pain relief in surgery when amputation was
more common.
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| From http://40.media.tumblr.com/4f13ebec52c0c5ba99fcecafab54c193 /tumblr_ndmkcnWMLQ1qzr8nao5_1280.jpg |
In the central role of a doctor
with good, potentially revolutionary intentions lost to failure and addiction, Karlof is perfect. This is him when he's
much older, more of the kind grandfather figure with a great warmth and
intelligence to him. You feel pity as his mind degrades into repeating
continuing his experiments on instinct just for an opiate fix; the gravitas
needed to make a character like this more than just the bland figure found in
Karloff. In general the casting exceptionally well done. Even in the likes of
Black Ben and his wife Rachel, the stereotypes of evil working class who feed
off their own, having actors like de
Wolff and Corri to give the roles more relish improves on the basic
characterisations. Amongst the cast Christopher
Lee has only a small role in contrast to the films he would be getting by
this point in his career, the same period as his first Hammer Dracula film, but
as Resurrection Joe he's allowed to try out something different. An unnerving
thug dressed in stark black clothes and hat, Lee's visible height difference against other actors makes him
tower over people like a ghoul. That the film never becomes an outright horror
film, depicting these characters as opportunists who smother people in their
drunken stupors and sell their freshly killed bodies, changes the type of fear
they generate. It's nice to know that, rather than a heavy handed anti-drug
message this side of Reefer Madness
(1936), the concern with Bolton is in him losing his morals in his opium
induced cloud by accident rather than becoming immoral immediately. In fact
that the ending moves on briefly with historical progress comes off as a more
thoughtful way to end the character's plotline. The only thing remotely like an
anti-drug movie is the trippy effect used to depict Bolton's opium highs, using
previously used footage and audio in repetitious layers until it piles on top
of each other, which in itself is a nice thing in itself to have as said
sequences do succeed into being very woozy in their effect.
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| From https://s3.amazonaws.com/criterion-production/stills/7667-3d7be484e3f46421a6f2af56dada6785/Film_368w_CorridorBlood_original.jpg |
Technical Details:
The production design is a key
factor for how the film works very well. Shot in rich monochrome, the
replicated streets of 19th century London with all its back alleys and rundown
streets adds a personality to the film. While the version depicted here is
still sanitised - there are always cutaways just before a surgical procedure
takes place, only the bloody tools depicted - it thankfully avoids becoming too
cleaned and false.
Abstract Spectrum: None
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
Nothing of note with this film.
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| From http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j153/comptonabbas/ CorridorsofBlood1958720pWEB-DLH264-WEBiOS.png |
Personal Opinion:
It was an immense surprise to see
this. I've been a lot more picky when it comes to British genre films but this
one appealed to me more for its historical setting and context for the plot. That
it's got Karloff in such a
sympathetic lead role adds to this, not another mad doctor figure but
something, again, different from usual. Befittingly this was screening after
midnight on BBC2, the closest thing
I'd get to the old broadcasting schedules where this sort of film was shown
more often, adding a greater worth to my delight in the film as the channel
introduced me to a film I'd never heard of before.
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