Doctor And The Devils, The

Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: November 4, 2014
Director: Freddie Francis
Cast: Timothy Dalton, Jonathan Pryce, Twiggy, Julian Sands, Stephen Rea, Patrick Stewart
Year: 1985
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The Movie:

Robert Fallon and Timothy Broom are resurrection men who never seem to make it to the grave on time. So they strike upon an ingenious method of procuring bodies to sell to an anatomy professor, Dr. Thomas Rock, at a local university: murder the down and outs who populate Edinburgh's seedier neighborhoods. Rock's young assistant, Dr. Murray, becomes suspicious after noticing that most of the victims appear fresh and sometimes without visible injuries. His suspicions are confirmed when someone he has seen alive just a few hours before shows up on Fallon and Broom's cart later the same night. Meanwhile, the university's establishment, led by Professor Macklin, have heard rumors of Rock's illegal purchases of dead bodies for class dissection and want him sacked, while Murray pursues a relationship with a prostitute.

The Doctor and the Devils is loosely based on the true story of Burke and Hare, two Irish immigrants who, in 1828, were responsible for a number of serial killings known at the time as The West Port Murders. Unable to procure fresh bodies to sell to Edinburgh Medical School anatomy professor Dr. Robert Knox, they took to getting their victims drunk before strangling them, an act which later became known as burking. After sixteen murders, the men were caught and put on trial. Burke, who was deemed the ringleader, was convicted and hung, while Hare turned state's evidence and was set free. Knox escaped prosecution, but he was found guilty in the court of public opinion and his name and career ruined in Scotland. Because it was so difficult for anatomists to procure much-needed bodies with which to teach future doctors, the murders led to the Anatomy Act of 1832, which increased the ways in which living relatives could allow their deceased loved ones to be handed over to medical schools for dissection before burial. In a fitting turn of events, Burke's body was handed over to the medical school, where it was dissected and is now on display in the school's museum.

Based on a long-unfilmed work about the incident written by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (“Do not go gentle into that good night”)—which has alternately been described as a play and a screenplay—The Doctor and the Devils is a throwback to an earlier era of horror. It plays like a Hammer film of the early 1970s, with an emphasis on drama and a refusal to shy away from the genre's gorier aspects. As such, it works, perhaps in part because it came at a time when the genre was suffering from slasher overkill. And like so many Hammer films, it included in its cast a bevy of powerful British actors (few of whom are or sound like Scots): Timothy Dalton, Jonathan Pryce, Julian Sands, Stephen Rea, and Patrick Stewart, as well as a number of lesser known but effective character actors. Pryce and Rea are the film's real standouts as Fallon and Broom, though Dalton's turn as a doctor in dire need of bodies, thwarted by the very laws meant to protect people, shouldn't be dismissed. English model and singer Twiggy is likewise terrific as aging prostitute Jennie Bailey, who is pursued by Murray (Julian Sands). It's difficult to imagine Twiggy as having the kind of acting chops to pull off a lady of the night who has seen better days. Yet she so immerses herself in the role that it's easy to forget she was once the androgynous face of the swinging sixties. If there's any actor who is wasted, it's Sands, fresh off his star-making turn in Merchant Ivory's A Room with a View. He's given the rather thankless task of animating a one-dimensional role and doesn't quite pull it off.

The Doctor and the Devils was produced by Mel Brooks's production company Brooksfilms Limited. But while it may have seemed like a departure for the famous comedian, it really isn't; his company had previously produced David Lynch's The Elephant Man (also based on a play), as well as the autobiographical Frances, and would go on to fund David Cronenberg's powerhouse remake of The Fly. Longtime Brooks producer Jonathan Sanger was tasked with overseeing the production, and he sensibly hired Oscar-winning cinematographer and former Hammer director Freddie Francis to helm the picture. It was a smart move, given the fluidity of Francis's direction. After breaking into the field in the early '60s, Francis grew disheartened with being stuck in the horror genre, and by the early 1970s, his career was in decline. He went back to cinematography, shooting pictures for the likes of David Lynch. The Doctor and the Devils represents his return to theatrical film direction and to the horror genre. Clearly he was enthusiastic about the project, given that the film's structure enabled him to focus on the dramatic aspects of the story rather than the horror, though he hardly avoided the latter. Unfortunately, The Doctor and the Devils proved a short-term return; it was the last film Francis ever directed, though he did finish the troubled Dark Tower (under a pseudonym) and made one last foray into television with an episode of HBO's Tales from the Crypt.

Everything about The Doctor and the Devils smacks of quality, from the believable performances by virtually everyone involved to the beautiful set and costume designs. If there's any problem with the film, it's that Ronald Harwood's final script is a bit too much like John Gilling's slightly superior The Flesh and the Fiends, which starred Peter Cushing in the Dr. Knox role. Unlike Gilling's film, however, The Doctor and the Devils changes the name of its principle characters per Thomas's original script. Regardless, it's a minor quibble that doesn't prevent the film from reaching the status of greatness.

Video/Audio/Extras:

The Doctor and the Devils comes to Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an MPEG-4 AVC codec. The aspect ratio is 2.35:1, a slight crop of the film's original theatrical ratio of 2.39:1. Despite said cropping, there is no noticeable loss of information anywhere in the frame. The 1080p transfer is a moderate improvement over Fox's previous DVD release; detail is much improved, though said detail disappears completely in the darker portions of the frame. This sometimes presents a problem, given that the film is extremely dark. (This has always been true, going back to its days on VHS.) The slight yellow tinting also appears to have been part of the film's original color composition and should not cause alarm; colors are otherwise vibrant. There's no noise, with the visible grain an inherent part of the film stock (the disc is a BD50, not a BD25, meaning that it's capable of holding a great deal of information without causing compression artifacting or other noise that can be confused with grain). The source material is surprisingly clean for an independent film of this vintage, with very little speckling and no print damage. Fans wanting to see the film with a sterling transfer akin to a modern film will be disappointed; anyone viewing the Blu-ray with slightly more muted expectations will approve of what they see.

The film's audio is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, which serves the film well. Sounds are distinct and clear, though Fallon and Broom's thick accents and quick manner of speaking may lead some viewers, particularly those with hearing problems, to watch with the subtitles on. These are presented in English, and though the disc doesn't identify them as such, they are for the deaf and hearing impaired, calling out as they do sounds apart from dialogue.

Extras include a low-resolution trailer clocking in at approximately 90 seconds. Like most trailers from the 1980s, it provides a succinct overview of the film, focusing on Dalton's sanctimonious Dr. Rock and the moral dilemmas faced by anatomists lacking cadavers for dissection in the early 1800s. There's also an interview with executive producer Mel Brooks and producers Jonathan Sanger and Randy Auerbach. This is presented as a featurette lasting approximately 15 minutes. It reveals some interesting facts about the film's production history, particularly concerning Francis. Unfortunately, the participants talk over each other, which is sometimes distracting, but that makes it no less informative. As with the feature presentation, it is included in 1080p. Rounding out the extras is an audio commentary by film historian Steve Haberman, author of Silent Screams: The History of the Silent Horror Film (Midnight Marquee Press, 2010). The commentary is clearly scripted, which, for this reviewer, is a positive turn. Haberman traces the factual history of Burke, Hare, and Dr. Knox, and covers previous films based on The West Port Murders. In addition, he discusses at length Dylan Thomas's original script, sometimes reading from it to reveal the famed author's poetical nature. There are many moments in which Haberman ceases to speak and the film's sound is raised to fill the silence; these are not generally done to focus on a snippet of dialogue or a moment of action but, rather, to make the commentary last the duration of the film's running time. This is not really a problem, given Haberman's deep-seated knowledge and penchant for research. For fellow historians, he is never less than interesting.

The Final Word:

The Doctor and the Devils is a great film worthy of early '70s Hammer. The direction, script, performances, and set and costume design are uniformly excellent. Unfairly forgotten by most genre fans today, it is in dire need of a reappraisal. To that end, Scream offers the film on BD improved in terms of visuals and sound over its DVD counterpart. The extras are informative and fun, and the commentary by Steve Haberman is a must-hear.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!