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…in which a Victorian doctor self-experiments in order to develop an inhalable anaesthetic that will render surgery painless, and it all goes ‘orribly wrong…
Unable to make up its mind whether it wants to be a horror movie or a medical drama, Corridors Of Blood finally fails at both despite the efforts of an excellent cast headed by Boris Karloff, and with Christopher Lee in an important early role.
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Liz Kingsley is the insane genius behind And You Call Yourself a Scientist!
#1 by RogerBW on August 30, 2015 - 5:33 am
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Theorising wildly, it seems to me that this might have started as a reasonably sensible story of experiments in anaesthesia, and then someone else came along and said that it had to have the tragedic arc of a horror film. How are we going to make this a tragedy? Add the criminals and the stupidity of the protagonist and so on.
#2 by Jen S 1.0 on August 30, 2015 - 1:38 pm
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Having read Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Everything, I find it depressingly easy to believe that an Obsessed Experimenter could be this moronic. I forget the name but apparently one guy insisted on tasting a bit of every chemical he worked with, which had the non-surprising result of his being found very very dead at his workbench.
A good researcher needs a very specific personality to be successful–driven and obsessive, sure, but that leavening bit of sanity that whispers “hey, maybe not do this alone at night? Say, where’s that pamphlet on the horrifically addictive effects of morphine, maybe read that through again, what say?” is even more essential.
#3 by supersonic man on August 30, 2015 - 3:34 pm
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In those still shots, Resurrection Joe radiates badassness and looks like the only interesting character.
#4 by lyzard on August 31, 2015 - 8:27 pm
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As a general comment I have no problem with the self-experimentation as such – it is only very recently that it has really been cracked down on (I used to have my blood taken so I could use my own white cells in assays). I have even less of a problem with it in this area, as self-experimentation was pretty much standard procedure when anaesthesia was being first investigated. However, self-experimentation with a well-understood drug like opium is unforgiveable.
It’s this surrounding stupidity I take issue with—and the fact that real people were just this stupid doesn’t excuse it—isn’t fiction supposed to improve on reality!? 🙂
Roger, the producers had an option on Karloff and needed a project in a hurry; he liked the subject matter of Jean Scott Rogers’ screenplay and thought it would be interesting and “different”. The screenplay was revised to accommodate Christopher Lee, and so the criminal enterprises became more prominent and Bolton’s connection with the gang more important, but the basic plot was not touched.
Joe’s enjoyment of his work and the pragmatic way Ben and Rachel go about theirs are the best things in the film, so we should be grateful the script was touched up this way.
#5 by Luke Blanchard on September 4, 2015 - 9:37 am
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Karloff played a similar character, with a similar story arc, in THE APE (1940).