The Doctor and the Devils

Plot

Dr. Thomas Rock (Timothy Dalton) is a respected 19th-century anatomist lecturing at a prominent medical school. He is deeply passionate about improving medical knowledge, a pursuit for which he believes "the ends justify the means." Unfortunately, due to the laws of the time very few cadavers are legally available to the medical profession, necessitating the use of graverobbers or "Resurrection men" by the medical establishment to procure additional specimens. Dr. Rocks young assistant Dr. Murray (Julian Sands) is given the task of buying the bodies, for which he is authorized to pay a small fortune, particularly for fresher corpses. When alcoholic miscreants Fallon (Jonathan Pryce) and Broom (Stephen Rea) overhear details of the arrangement, they begin to murder the locals and sell their bodies. Gradually, Dr. Murray becomes more suspicious of the string of fresh bodies turning up at the medical school, but Dr. Rock dismisses his concerns. Meanwhile, Murray has begun to fall for beautiful local prostitute Jennie Bailey (Twiggy), who soon becomes the target of Fallon and Brooms murderous enterprise. When Jennies friend Alice (Nichola McAuliffe) turns up dead in Dr. Rocks dissection room, Murray realizes what is happening and heroically rescues Jennie from a murderous Fallon. Both killers are soon arrested, but Broom agrees to turn states evidence against his former partner, and is set free, unrepentant. Fallon is executed by hanging. Dr. Rock, for his part in the killings, is the subject of widespread public outrage, but ultimately not punished or censured by his colleagues. The film ends with Rock pondering his responsibility for the horrors and concluding, "oh my God I knew what I was doing."

Cast

Production

Brooksfilms founder and executive producer Mel Brooks, a life-long horror fan, acquired the rights to Dylan Thomass unproduced screenplay The Doctor and the Devils (first published in 1953) in the hopes of adapting it into a horror film. He hired director and former cinematographer Freddie Francis, who during the 1960s and 70s had directed a series of horror films for famed British horror productions companies Hammer and Amicus. Brooks original intention was to simply use the title of the Thomas screenplay, but Francis pushed for a closer adherence to the original script. A compromise was arranged with playwright and screenwriter Ronald Harwood adapting Thomass more cerebral work into something more genre-friendly. Despite the adaptation, much of Thomass original dialogue remains.

The film was produced by Jonathan Sanger, who worked on a number of Mel Brooks films. Brooks himself is credited as Executive Producer. The soundtrack was composed by John Morris with vocals from In Tua Nua, and includes the song Whisper and I Shall Hear, featuring vocals by actress Twiggy. Many involved in the production (including Brooks, Sanger, Morris, casting director Maggie Cartier, and director Francis [then working as a cinematographer]) had previously worked on Brooksfilms highly successful The Elephant Man in 1980.

The original 1828 murders occurred in Edinburgh, Scotland, but apart from Patrick Stewart exuding a mild Scottish accent, nobody else in the film has any Scottish connections. Indeed, the vast majority of actors play their parts using Cockney accents, giving the impression that the location was London. It was filmed at Lee International Studios, in Shepperton, Surrey, England.

The film would be star Timothy Daltons last film before being cast in the iconic role of James Bond. It would also be the final theatrically released film directed by Francis, who subsequently returned to his career as a cinematographer.

Reception

The film struggled to find an audience, and was not well-received by critics. Roger Ebert gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four, writing, "It is impossible to discover, on the evidence of "The Doctor and the Devils," why anybody connected with this movie thought it should be made. It is unredeemed, dreary, boring, gloomy dreck unilluminated by even the slightest fugitive moment of inspiration or ambition," though he praised star Twiggy as the films "only ray of sunshine." Vincent Canby of the New York Times was more positive, writing the film boats a "first-rate English cast," and adding that "Mr. Harwoods screenplay, which retains a lot of the original Thomas dialogue, is much more fun to see than the Thomas screenplay is to read."

Video and DVD

The film was originally released on PAL video but only appeared on DVD in 2005, in NTSC format (Region 1)

Shout! Factory released the film as a Region A Blu-ray in October 2014.