Set in Edinburgh Burke (Nesbitt) & Hare (Edwards) embark on the profitable enterprise of supplying the dead bodies of lodgers from the poorhouse to the medical pioneer Dr Knox (Andrews). As the supply of corpses dries up and driven by their money grabbing wives the pair move onto murder in order to maintain their income. Dr. .. Read more
| Starring | Derren Nesbitt, Glynn Edwards, Harry Andrews |
|---|---|
| Director | Vernon Sewell |
| Genres | Drama |
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Set in Edinburgh Burke (Nesbitt) & Hare (Edwards) embark on the profitable enterprise of supplying the dead bodies of lodgers from the poorhouse to the medical pioneer Dr Knox (Andrews). As the supply of corpses dries up and driven by their money grabbing wives the pair move onto murder in order to maintain their income. Dr. Knox suspicions become alerted when he's presented with the corpse of a club footed beggar who he's seen alive earlier in the day.
| Starring | Derren Nesbitt, Glynn Edwards, Harry Andrews |
|---|---|
| Director | Vernon Sewell |
| Studio | SIMPLY MEDIA |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 30 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 16 Mar 2009 Production year: 1972 |
| Format | DVD |
Vacillating between melodrama and bathos, this moves uneasily from one unfulfilled promise to another, dogged from... read more on Time Out
This just doesn't work, and I wonder whether or not the director didn't somehow lose control of it. It's an obvious cheapie, not good for a period film, and at times its interesting to see how he copes with the low budget: I would cite the fire-fighting scene as a good example. A major problem is the lack of rapport between the actors playing the lead roles, but the real drawback is the number of would-be jokey-erotic and utterly redundant 'confessions of'-style soft porny romps that are inserted into the action at various points: embarrassingly bad. Despite that, some good actors appear occasionally - Yootha Joyce, Harry Andrews and Jame Hayter, for example. I wonder if Mr. Sewell was the vicitm of a 'Caligula' style hi-jacking?
Dan Aykroyd has signed on to join Simon Pegg, Bill Nighy and former Dr. Who David Tennant in a new film about graverobbers William Burke and William Hare. Casting has yet to be finalised, but Pegg will play Burke in the John Landis movie. Burke and Hare earned notoriety in the 19th century for digging up the dead and selling off cadavers to medical schools. Read more