#5 - Corridors of Blood (1958)
(dir. Robert Day)
There's nothing I like more than classic period horror films starring Boris Karloff, and this one has the added bonus of Christopher Lee in a supporting role as well. Set in London in 1840 (before the invention of anesthesia, as the opening title makes sure to point out), Dr. Bolton (Karloff) is a surgeon obsessed with inventing - you guessed it - anesthesia. Surgery at this point in history apparently involves no sort of pain management at all, although clearly they have laudanum available and probably morphine too. Even stranger is that all of the other doctors seem to think Bolton is nuts for trying to come up with a way to render patients insensible, and that "pain and the knife are inseparable". I have no idea how historically accurate any of this is, but it seems a little dubious to me.
Meanwhile, Bolton also runs a dispensary where he treats the poor for free, but some local criminals have decided to take advantage of his kindness and trick him into signing fake death certificates. The scheme involves suffocating their victims, getting a certificate saying they died of natural causes, and then selling the bodies to the medical college. This racket is led by a man named Resurrection Joe (Lee), which is an awesome name, and Lee does great things with the fairly small amount of screen time he gets. Joe is lean and scarred, with a casual demeanor and hint of a cruel smile on his face at all times. Before we even know that something illegal is happening, one glance at him tells us he is an evil bastard. It's a great performance, but I'd expect nothing less from Lee.
Both Karloff and Lee have of course each been in much better films, but this is one of only two films that they starred in together. It's quite good, and if you have any interest in this sort of classic horror I highly recommend it.
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