ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

XoWizIama Excellent adaptation.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

gavin6942 Dr. Thomas Bolton fights for the use of anesthetic in surgery and uses himself as a guinea pig but soon finds himself addicted.After the success of "The Haunted Strangler", producer Richard Gordon looked at making a follow up with Boris Karloff. At one stage a color remake of Dracula was discussed as was an adaptation of The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar. Eventually producer John Scott discovered a screenplay by Jean Scott Rogers based on the early days of anesthesia, originally called Doctor from Seven Dials.From what I can gather, the film was put on hold for a few years between shooting and release, and ultimately made a very small profit. This is unfortunate, given the casting of Karloff and Lee, but there is no denying that this film is somewhat inferior to "Haunted Strangler". The fact it was marketed as terrifying seems a bit odd and false... it has some horror elements, but is definitely not scary in any sense.

rdoyle29 An interesting film that blends a Jekyll & Hyde type of theme with a Burke & Hare body stealing plot, and ties them together with a medical plot involving the discovery of anesthesia. Boris Karloff stars as a respected surgeon in Victorian London who is committed to finding a way to perform surgery without inflicting pain on his patients. He develops a gas mixture that seems to work, but finds nobody in the medical establishment willing to believe him. He experiments with the formula on himself, and through a mixture of overwork and increasing addiction to the narcotic gas, wanders around London at night with no memory of what happened. He falls in with a criminal gang at an unsavory pub that want to use him to get fake death certificates for the bodies they sell to the hospital. A really classy horror outing that features one of the only pairings of Karloff and Christopher Lee (as the body snatching, murderer Resurrection Joe).

Prichards12345 This was Karloff's second film for Director Robert Day in 1958, the other being Grip Of The Strangler. That movie ain't bad but this is certainly the better offering of the two.Boris Karloff is excellent as Dr. Thomas Bolton, operating with great speed to minimise pain for those under the surgeon's knife in the London of 1840. Convinced that chemical inhalation can separate agony from the knife, dedicated Boris uses himself as a test subject - and whoops, is that tincture of opium being added to the mixture? It isn't long before Bolton becomes addicted to the gas, falling under the control of inn-keep Black Ben (an agreeably seedy Francis De Wolff). With Christopher Lee in tow as his side kick Resurrection Joe, they fancy they have a nice littler earner by getting Bolton to forge death certificates, and providing the corpus delicti to the local hospital for a nice fat fee.This is a film with more than a hint of Oliver Twist, and a touch of Karloff's own earlier triumph The Body Snatcher. Yet it works extremely well, capturing the atmosphere of 1840s London effortlessly. Karloff is well aided by his supporting cast, including a quietly creepy Lee, Francis Matthews as Bolton's son and Adrienne Corri. M.G.M. apparently had a change of management after the film was delivered and buried the movie for four years before giving it a limited release. Shame, as this is a very good drama with some stand-out horror moments. Well worth seeing.

DJAkin I DVR'd this movie and liked it a great deal. Boris delivers the goods as a doctor who performs surgery in a THEATER. He does not use anesthesia because it had not been invented yet. So he has to cut people while they squirm in pain. Eventually he invents an anesthesia and gets hooked on it. The more he inhales the stranger he becomes. IN once scene he laughs hysterically and cuts his arm. Yes, he FEELS NO PAIN. There is a large BLUTO looking guy who hoodwinks him into coming to his strange house of sin. At this house there are TONS of wounded people who hobble around. There is this one guy who smothers folks with pillows and sells the bodies to the local hospital. Meanwhile the BORIS KARLOFF continues to dwindle into the depths of madness. Great movie!!