The Body Snatcher

I agree with Professor Hammond - Val Lewton allowed Karloff to use every skill he had in RKOs The Body Snatcher. Karloff plays the good (white horseman) and evil (black horseman) cabsman/graverobber (i.e., body snatcher), and does a terrific job. Friendly and reassuring to little girls, savvy and familiar with Dr. Toddy McFarland, and manipulative and evil to poor Bela Lugosi (a/k/a Joseph), dogs, and blind girls as well.
An interesting point in this movie, that the law designates paupers for vivisection.
Dr. McFarland is a "scientist" (anatomist) teacher; there was mention to the Burke and Hare murders on at least two or three occasions.
http://skyelander.orgfree.com/burkhare.html. Gruesome pair who actually decided to smother living anatomical specimens (the opposite of resurrection), and apparently could not be classified as graverobbers since the medical anatomy subjects had not been buried before transfer to the medical school. This is said to have coined the phrase "burking" meaning to suffocate.

"In the early nineteenth century, body snatching was rife because the only corpses available for medical study were those of hanged murderers. With the Anatomy Act of 1832, however, the bodies of those who died destitute in workhouses were appropriated for dissection." Source: Death, Dissection and the Destitute by Ruth Richardson, 2000.

Very interesting movie.