With bodysnatching, murder and saucy shenanigans in a brothel, Burke and Hare plays like The Flesh and the Fiends (1960) mixed with a bawdy '70s British sex comedy, and it's a lot of fun. It even comes with its own jaunty and very catchy theme song sung by The Scaffold.
Derren Nesbitt and Glynn Edwards (Dave from Minder) play Burke and Hare, who turn to murder when they realise there is money to be made selling corpses to eminent surgeon Dr. Knox (Harry Andrews), who uses the bodies in his medical lectures. The pair are aided by their greedy wives (played by George and Mildred star Yootha Joyce and Dee Shenderey), but the killers come unstuck when they stop targeting drunken down and outs and start killing people who will be missed.
Directed by Vernon Sewell, the film features broad performances with some really iffy accents, ribald comedy, female nudity (Hammer babe Yutte Stensgaard and drop dead gorgeous Françoise Pascal play prostitutes Janet and Marie and provide plenty of T&A), and a boozy brawl, none of which is very sophisticated but sure is entertaining.
As a result of the film's irreverent treatment, the majority of the murders are not all that shocking, Marie's death being the exception, her body winding up on Knox's table to the shock of Arbuthnot (Alan Tucker), her medical student love interest.
Derren Nesbitt and Glynn Edwards (Dave from Minder) play Burke and Hare, who turn to murder when they realise there is money to be made selling corpses to eminent surgeon Dr. Knox (Harry Andrews), who uses the bodies in his medical lectures. The pair are aided by their greedy wives (played by George and Mildred star Yootha Joyce and Dee Shenderey), but the killers come unstuck when they stop targeting drunken down and outs and start killing people who will be missed.
Directed by Vernon Sewell, the film features broad performances with some really iffy accents, ribald comedy, female nudity (Hammer babe Yutte Stensgaard and drop dead gorgeous Françoise Pascal play prostitutes Janet and Marie and provide plenty of T&A), and a boozy brawl, none of which is very sophisticated but sure is entertaining.
As a result of the film's irreverent treatment, the majority of the murders are not all that shocking, Marie's death being the exception, her body winding up on Knox's table to the shock of Arbuthnot (Alan Tucker), her medical student love interest.