What an arrogant society we are. We stand at the pinnacle of knowledge. We know everything there is to know, except there's the small business of filling in the dots. Of course the fact is that every generation feels the same way. No matter how stupid they are, every cohort of scientists and moralists manages to convince itself that it has a monopoly on wisdom, never realizing that there's a new paradigm waiting around the corner -- and then the following generation feels on top of the mountain.
At the time this film is supposed to be taking place, pain during operations was supposed to be natural and good. Well, maybe not so good for the patient. The subsequent infection generated "laudable pus," a sign of healing. In Georgia, Dr. Crawford Long was working on ether as a painkiller in dentistry. Mostly though, Long and his friends sat around sniffing the stuff and getting high. Nitrous oxide ("sweet air") was popular when I was a kid. As an adult I started to make it in a closet. It's easy enough to do. But I chickened out because if you boil it too long it explodes violently.
Boris Karloff, in a serious performance, is a tousled surgeon who is trying desperately to make some anaesthetic concoction out of opium and other things. He tries it on himself. This is an acceptable form of data collection -- "self report." It's how the Swiss chemist Hoffman discovered the effects of LSD in 1943. But Karloff's stuff seems to be addicting, like Dr. Jeykll's. In pursuing chemicals to experiment with and to feed his addiction he falls in with bad company and is eventually killed by Christopher Lee.
It's a confusing story, or so it seemed to me. "Resurrectionists" are mixed up in it. But the London setting are effectively evoked and Karloff's shaky and unkempt descent into addiction are well portrayed. The director makes good use of the wide screen. Support is provided by British stalwarts like Finlay Currie and Nigel Green. And there is Betta St. John, who is, I'm convinced, the lost sister of Theresa Wright. There are some effective scenes of operations too, straight out of Eakin's "The Gross Clinic." Painful to watch.
It's not really a horror film, and certainly not a slasher movie. There's nothing supernatural about the drama, and nothing that's especially implausible. We can imagine the scorn that Karloff receives from his skeptical colleagues. After all, it does happen, as it did to Freud.
At the time this film is supposed to be taking place, pain during operations was supposed to be natural and good. Well, maybe not so good for the patient. The subsequent infection generated "laudable pus," a sign of healing. In Georgia, Dr. Crawford Long was working on ether as a painkiller in dentistry. Mostly though, Long and his friends sat around sniffing the stuff and getting high. Nitrous oxide ("sweet air") was popular when I was a kid. As an adult I started to make it in a closet. It's easy enough to do. But I chickened out because if you boil it too long it explodes violently.
Boris Karloff, in a serious performance, is a tousled surgeon who is trying desperately to make some anaesthetic concoction out of opium and other things. He tries it on himself. This is an acceptable form of data collection -- "self report." It's how the Swiss chemist Hoffman discovered the effects of LSD in 1943. But Karloff's stuff seems to be addicting, like Dr. Jeykll's. In pursuing chemicals to experiment with and to feed his addiction he falls in with bad company and is eventually killed by Christopher Lee.
It's a confusing story, or so it seemed to me. "Resurrectionists" are mixed up in it. But the London setting are effectively evoked and Karloff's shaky and unkempt descent into addiction are well portrayed. The director makes good use of the wide screen. Support is provided by British stalwarts like Finlay Currie and Nigel Green. And there is Betta St. John, who is, I'm convinced, the lost sister of Theresa Wright. There are some effective scenes of operations too, straight out of Eakin's "The Gross Clinic." Painful to watch.
It's not really a horror film, and certainly not a slasher movie. There's nothing supernatural about the drama, and nothing that's especially implausible. We can imagine the scorn that Karloff receives from his skeptical colleagues. After all, it does happen, as it did to Freud.