Wonderfully offbeat film!

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

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.

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).

(Credit IMDb) In an effort to relieve the suffering of surgery patients, Dr. Thomas Bolton painstakingly develops an opium-based anesthetic, to which he gradually becomes addicted. In order to provide a continual supply of chemicals to continue his experiments and support his addiction, he falls in with a den of murderers who use his signature to sell cadavers to the local hospital. I found this online the other day, and decided to watch it. I'm a big Boris Karloff fan, and will watch almost anything he stars in. Apparently, this wasn't released until 1962, and I can see why. It has a heavy message going for it. It was back around the time where surgery wasn't nearly as advanced as it is these days, so they did some pretty ballsy stuff. Back then, you didn't have anesthesia like you do now. It was not only painful, but often frightening. The thought of surgery is scary enough as it is, even with anesthesia, but it's even more terrifying without it. My problem with this movie is that it failed to maintain my interest. In fact, it's almost lifeless at times. Boris Karloff's drug addiction was somewhat riveting at certain points, don't get me wrong. But it was a bit too bland, despite how deeply they delved into it. Boris Karloff gives a bravura performance. He is by far the best thing about this movie. I felt for him. I just wish they gave him more to work with. Many of the films he made as he got older, didn't deserve a man of his talents. This movie is one of them. Christopher Lee is quite chilling as well, I just wished he and Karloff had more screen time together. Overall, I don't grasp why this movie is well liked. It's boring, rather depressing, and hard to get into. I respect people's opinions, so maybe you'll get more out of it than I did4.6/10

Corridors of Blood is set in 'London 1840 before the discovery of anaesthesia' where prominent surgeon Dr. Thomas Bolton (Boris Karloff) is convinced that 'operations without pain' are possible as having your leg sawn off without any anaesthesia is rather painful. Bolton feels that by experimenting with different combinations of drugs he can create a gas which will render the patient numb & not able to feel a thing as the sharp steel of the saw & knife slices through flesh... Not everyone is convinced about his ideas though & after a terrible demonstration which fails Bolton finds lots of resistance to his idea but he carries on with his experiments & becomes addicted to the drugs he creates, after he is forced to take a 'holiday' & his privilege's are revoked he has to turn to local thugs to acquire the drugs he needs...This British production sat on the self & remain unreleased for 4 years was directed Robert Day & to be fair to it it's a pretty decent film. The first thing to say is that the inappropriate & unjustly exploitative title is very misleading & that Corridors of Blood is more a historic drama than a horror film, in fact apart from some uneasy surgery scenes there is no horror in this film. The script by Jean Scott Rogers chronicles the invention of anaesthesia in an entirely fictional story, it's a fairly interesting & watchable film but I felt it was a bit dull & not much stood out for me. It has a leisurely pace, I'm not sure whether it was conceived as a horror film & I get the impression that anyone going 'blind' into this film on the back of it having Boris Karloff & Christopher Lee in it along with it's attention grabbing title will be disappointed. The character's are OK, the dialogue is alright although I didn't think that much of the overly sentimental ending. It's a decent enough film but that's it.Director Day does OK but it suffers from the limitations you think a black and white film of this vintage would. The sets are cosy enough, the period recreation looks good but it's all rather static & a bit bland. The couple of surgery scenes are pretty grim even though they're not graphic a it's more the thought of what's going on than what is actually seen. Forget about any scares as it's just not that sort of film, there's no exploitation either.Technically Corridors of Blood is fine, it's a reasonably well crafted film with good production values. The acting is good, Karloff puts in his usual commanding performance & a young up & coming actor named Christopher Lee makes for an effective villain in an early role.Corridors of Blood is a perfectly watchable film although I'm not really sure who it's meant to appeal to, for me I was hoping for a horror film because of the title & instead I got a fictional historic drama & frankly I'd rather had spent the time watching a horror film. Worth a watch but nothing that special.