Despite it's title, Corridors of Blood (1958), and that it stars Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee, this is more of a Dickensian crime thriller than a horror movie. There are murders committed so that the bodies can be sold to doctors, but the real horror is the vast difference between the world of the privileged and the decaying underworld of the poor. There's also the horror of surgery before the invention on anesthesia, which is what this movie is really about. Karloff plays a scientist who is determined that a way can be found to create a means for patients not to have to suffer through surgery and feel what's being done to them. He experiments at creating various gases which he tests on himself. While trying to perfect his anesthesia, he finds himself becoming addicted to his drug, drummed out of his profession and mixed-up with a group of criminals who blackmail him into signing false death certificates for men they've murdered, so they can sell the bodies for medical research. It's an engaging movie with impressive sets and colorful characters, but in the end is really more of a tragedy than a horror movie.
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