CORRIDORS OF BLOOD (1958): One Of Boris Karloff’s Best 1950s Efforts

1958 was a busy year for Boris Karloff. Thanks to the sale of his old Universal horror movies to TV as part of the 1957 SHOCK package, he was in demand once again as a horror actor. He signed a two picture deal with producer Richard Gordon’s Amalgamated Productions which meant travelling to England to make them. The first of these, THE HAUNTED STRANGLER, was completed in late 1957 after which Karloff returned to the U.S. to make FRANKENSTEIN 1970. Then it was back to England to do CORRIDORS OF BLOOD.

Karloff enjoyed making these two movies as they reminded him of those he had made with 1940s producer Val Lewton and it gave him the opportunity to return to England. Despite all the years he spent in Hollywood and New York, Karloff never gave up his British citizenship. He was always given better scripts over there as an examination of STRANGLER / CORRIDORS with FRANKENSTEIN 1970 clearly shows. STRANGLER had been very successful and so Karloff and company had high hopes for CORRIDORS and though it was the better of the two films, it was not to be.

The film tells the story of Doctor Thomas Bolton, a surgeon in 1840s London who is trying to develop an early form of anesthesia in order to relieve the suffering of his patients who had to undergo surgery without any medication. In order to do this, he experiments on himself using a variety of chemicals which he inhales in the hopes of achieving the desired effect. Unfortunately he becomes addicted to the inhalations which leads to a downward spiral and final tragedy. The character of Bolton is based on an American dentist named Horace Wells who attempted the same thing with the same results.

Joining Karloff in CORRIDORS were an excellent group of British character performers including Finlay Currie, Francis De Wolff, Adrienne Corri, and a young Christopher Lee who would hit superstardom a few months later with Hammer’s DRACULA. Since the budget was bigger and the studio was larger, the picture has the look and feel of an A picture with its elaborate sets and lots of extras filling out the surgery and tavern scenes. However as soon as it was completed MGM, the studio who made it, had a change of ownership and the new regime didn’t want to release it.

It sat on the shelf for 4 years before being released on a double bill with an Italian-German horror called WEREWOLF IN A GIRL’S DORMITORY and then it disappeared for years. I remember seeing the print ads for it when it played in a local cinema. Although I was 10 years old at the time and was already a big BK fan thanks to his TV show THRILLER, my mother refused to let me go see it as she didn’t approve of the second feature. The fact that it was playing at a movie house that was considered the bottom rung of the ladder didn’t help. It would become an X rated theater in a few years.

I did manage to catch CORRIDORS on TV in the mid 1960s but then did not see it again until it was first released by Image Entertainment on DVD in 1999 (the one being reviewed here) along with its companion piece, THE HAUNTED STRANGLER. Then in 2007 The Criterion Collection released it as part of a box set called MONSTERS & MADMEN. Although there isn’t a major upgrade in picture quality, the M&M set comes with lots of extras including interviews and a commentary which is very informative. If you don’t want to spend money on the Criterion set then this Image version will do just fine.