The Doctor and the Devils (1985)

Thanks for the memories!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I came across a slim volume at a cut-rate book sale in university back in 1973; it was Dylan Thomas's made-for-TV screenplay for "The Doctor and the Devils".It was a great read. I was impressed by how Thomas cleverly broke the action into small mini-scenes; you could call it short-attention-span theater, but I've gotta admit reading it was cinematographic: I felt like I was watching TV.So here's a Mel Brooks production, roughly based off the Thomas script.In truth, the story's changed quite a bit, but the spirit is the same. There's a tone to the movie which I think the director took from the script, which is simultaneously sage and florid... if you can imagine such a thing!So... if I have a misgiving about the movie, it's that the tone worked in the book, but somehow seems cheap and hammy in the movie.That's my sole complaint. Too bad that complaint colors my experience of the movie from start to finish!But... what's to recommend? The actors took direction VERY well. I was amazed at Twiggy: She is a true dramatic force in this flick, and (come to think of it) she somewhat tempers the tone issue I mention above. Hmm.In general, the production values are fine.I suppose if you want to take in the story, this flick will do. It delivers the tendentious payload--the dance of dawning scientific achievement, shabby preening moralism, and honest moral issues--quite nicely.I wish I could give this at least a 9. But it doesn't feel right. It's that "tone thing", y'know?

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.

As others have noted, this should have been an excellent Hammer-style film, and it seems to me that that's how most of the actors were instructed to play it... but the screenplay is so leaden, poorly paced, and filled with a lot of dull soliloquies (poor Timothy Dalton is saddled with most of them) that it's all too overblown and self-important. This is an uncharacteristically weak performance from Dalton, although he quietly nails the climactic scene where Dr. Rock finally realizes what he's done. The only actor who comes off really well is Patrick Stewart who is a most welcome sight. Freddie Francis may have been a great cinematographer, but he was a lousy director.

Unquestionably one of the most fascinating real-life murder cases in the history of mankind is the story of William Burke and William Hare; suppliers of fresh human cadavers for surgeon Robert Knox to study anatomy upon. The facts took place in the late Victorian era, in other words a strictly religious time where scientists could exclusively dispose of the bodies of executed criminals as study material. The lack of serviceable cadavers spawned the malicious business of "body snatching". For a good price, lowlife criminals would dig up newly buried corpses at night and deliver them secretly to the doctors' houses. Obsessed with the payments, which increased remarkably if the bodies were fresher, Burke and Hare quickly converted to murder and, even though Dr. Knox damn well knew about this, he didn't object because the bodies he got were perfect to experiment with. "The Doctor and the Devils" is no less than the fifth film version of this factual murder case and, for some damn reason, just as obscure and hard-to-find as the other four. Personally, I spent quite a few years finding Val Lewton's "The Body Snatcher" and John Gilling's "The Flesh and the Fiends" and I still haven't managed to pick up decent copies of "Burke & Hare" (1972) and "The Greed of William Hart" (1948). Purchasing "The Doctor and the Devils" was quite a difficult mission as well but, if you're also intrigued by the story, it's an absolute must-see! The screenplay was completed by poet Dylan Thomas (in the 1950's already), who changed the names of the characters but sticked truly close to the timing, setting and accurate little details of the murders. The whole depiction of the murderers as well as their victims (prostitutes, beggars, ill people and drunks) is depressing and raw, yet amazingly accurate and even truly disturbing without becoming explicit or gory.Despite being mainly an American production (with comedy legend Mel Brooks as the unlikely producer) and released during the flamboyant horror period of the mid-80's, "The Doctor and the Devils" truly feels like a good old-fashioned and solid British Gothic movie. Pretty much the type Hammer Studios used to be specialized in. Surely this is no coincidence, given the subject matter and the origin of the facts, but this feeling is also largely created by director Freddie Francis and his overall professional British cast. Francis actually did quite a lot of work for Hammer during the 60's and 70's and has some respectable classics on his repertoire, such as "The Evil of Frankenstein" and "Legend of the Werewolf". The cast, as mentioned before, is pretty great and that only makes it harder to understand why this film is still so under-appreciated. Timothy Dalton is terrific as the ambitious and stubborn Dr. Thomas Rock, constantly battling his superiors and being zealous for the evolution of his profession. But most praise goes out to Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea, both playing their roles of greedy and inhuman killers with amazing vigour. Perhaps a bit sad and redundant is the role of Julian Sands ("Gothic", "Boxing Helena") as Dr. Rock's assistant. His pointless romance with the local prostitute Twiggy is the only weak element in the movie. Other than this, the set pieces are very convincing, the cinematography is excellent and the music is downright enchanting. "The Doctor and the Devils" is a great and genuinely chilling movie that urgently deserves to be catapulted out of oblivion.