It seems ironic that a HIGHLY fictionalized account of the exploits of the Scottish resurrectionists Burke & Hare are presented in this edition of "Thriller". This is because in 1945, Boris Karloff (the man who introduces each episode of the series made his own version of the story, "The Body Snatcher". While "The Body Snatcher" is among Karloff's best films, "The Innocent Bystanders" is much more pedestrian and features one of the worst cliches from TV and film.
In the old days, surgeons had difficulty learning their craft because folks were loathe to donate the bodies of the dead and the only bodies medical schools could obtain were from folks executed for various crimes. This led to folks becoming 'resurrectionists' by trade....in other words, they stole dead bodies and secretly sold them to the medical schools! But, when this inventory of bodies became scarce, some resurrectionists took to robbing graveyards....and the infamous Burke & Hare made a business out of killing people and selling them to the medical schools. This story is a completely fictitious version of them...and the names were changed because the story differs so significantly from the true account of their actions.
So why did I only give this one a 3? Well, first, there are much better accounts of these resurrectionists...and you should see them instead. Second, when the show was wrapping up, one of these evil men is trying to kill a woman. Her husband comes to her rescue and fights with the giant murderous man....and the wife just stands there doing absolutely nothing to help her husband from being murdered! The helpless victim cliche is annoying as anyone who is seeing their husband being killed would do more than just stand there doing nothing! She could have screamed, gone to get help, hit the big man with a chair or even called him nasty names to confuse him...but she did NOTHING!!! This is just bad writing...pure and simple.