The Body Snatcher / Isle of the Dead

Monday | July 30, 2007 7:00 pm

The Body Snatcher

Directed by Robert Wise

Isle of the Dead

Directed by Mark Robson

Screening on Film

Following a successful career as a story editor for David O. Selznick, Val Lewton was hired to head RKO Pictures’ newly established horror unit in 1942. Designed as an economical way to capitalize on the popularity of Universal’s forays into the genre (Frankenstein, Dracula), Lewton’s productions offered stripped down exercises in the macabre, including some of Jacques Tourneurs’ most acclaimed works. Adapted from a Robert Louis Stevenson story, The Body Snatcher stars Boris Karloff as a murderous hansom cab driver whose victims are used for scientific expereiments. In Isle of the Dead, Karloff plays a Greek general who seeks to contain the effects of a deadly plague on a deserted Balkan island.

PROGRAM

The Body Snatcher

Directed by Robert Wise.
With Henry Daniell, Boris Karloff, Russell Wade.
US, 1945, 35mm, black & white, 77 min.
Isle of the Dead

Directed by Mark Robson.
With Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Helene Thimig.
US, 1945, 35mm, black & white, 72 min.