Remake This #HalloweenEdition: The Westport Murders Referenced in "The Body Snatcher" (1945) - popcorn and red wine

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Remake This #HalloweenEdition: The Westport Murders Referenced in "The Body Snatcher" (1945)

 


"There is all that between them and more -- Burke and Hare and Knox...And did you hear them speak of the porter who testified against Burke? They did not tell you that the porter cried out in the witness box when the Kings Counselor pressed him hard -- how he cried out that he was shielding a gentleman of consequence. That porter was Gray and the gentleman of consequence who couldn't swallow the shame [was] McFarlane."

Both the Robert Lewis Stevenson short story and its Val Lawton adapted film have one thing in common in reference and plot. The Burke and Hare or the West Port Murders was a killing spree of 16 people in 1828 Edinburg, Scotland committed by William Burke and William Hare. Instead of being sent to their graves, the victims' bodies were sold to Doctor Robert Knox for anatomy classes. The infamous trial began on Christmas Eve 1828 and ran for a full 24 hours resulting in Burke's execution the next month and Hare's eviction from the country a month after that.


William Burke: Jamie Dornan
William Hare: Colin Morgan
Helen McDougal: Sarah Bolger
Margaret Laird: Karen Gillan
Robert Knox: Peter Capaldi

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