Burke and Hare ** (1972, Derren Nesbitt, Harry Andrews, Glynn Edwards, Yootha Joyce, Robin Hawdon, Yutte Stensgaard) – Classic Movie Review 2896

Director Vernon Sewell’s macabre 1972 British horror movie stars Derren Nesbitt and Glynn Edwards as the real-life early 19th-century Irish grave-robbers turned murderers, Burke and Hare. Gruesomely, they are famous for going into business to supply medical colleges with bodies by robbing graves.

The old Edinburgh-set body-snatching story that the cinema keeps raiding is here unadvisedly told partly as a horror film and partly as a 70s idea of sexy black-comedy exploits.

Harry Andrews gives a cheerfully hammy performance as Dr Knox, the surgeon who needs more and more corpses for his experiments and turns to Burke and Hare to help him out.

Also in the cast are Yootha Joyce as Mrs Hare, Dee Shenderey, Alan Tucker, Françoise Pascal, Paul Greaves, Joan Carol, Thomas Heathcoate, David Pugh, Robin Hawdon, Yutte Stensgaard, James Hayter, Frederick Piper and Duncan Lamont.

The result’s a Hare-raising experience. This was the final film of director Vernon Sewell, though he lived till June 21 2001, dying at the age of 97.

The story was retold in Burke and Hare (2010).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2896

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