Before I Hang (1940)

Pretty Good

Great Film overall

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

This starts out so well. We have a man who really shouldn't have been executed, facing the music for doing an act of kindness toward a fellow human being. The people around him give him his wish to continue to do research and he is eventually pardoned because of his great discoveries. Unfortunately, to prove his point, he gets injected with the blood of a three-time killer who was hanged. Of course, true to plot, Karloff's kindly old doctor begins to black out and do evil deeds to the people he loved. He has discovered a sort of fountain of youth, but his old buddies realize that he is messing where he shouldn't have been messing, and want nothing to do with it. Whenever he gets all worked up, he becomes a strangler. There's nothing very remarkable about it and the science is quite ludicrous. Karloff and the rest of the cast give it the old college try, but the thing is so lame that it just falls flat. Totally predictable.

(Some Spoilers) 1940 turned out to be a bumper year for Boris Karloff with him staring in eight movies mostly as a kindly misunderstood man of science. In "Before I Hang" Boris is at it again as the meek and sensitive Dr. John Garth who's life long quest for the secret of eternal youth and excellent health has lead him to face the hangman in the murder, or mercy killing, of one of his patients.Condemned to death and sentenced to be hung for his crime Dr. Garth nevertheless is allowed to conducted his experiences behind bars. Hours before he's to be executed Dr. Garth has himself injected with a serum that would forever keep his cells from decaying and keep him both healthy and youthful. It also turns out that Grath has become infused with the blood of a triple murderer who's been executed the day before. That serum that was to help the future of humanity in fact created a monster who will kill anyone who stand in his way, in his mad and misguided attempt too save the human race, even his sweet daughter Martha played by Evelyn Keys.Garth despite him murdering fellow scientist Dr. Ralph Howard, Edward Van Sloan, and prison orderly Otto Krone, Frank Richards, is overlooked in their murders only because he left no eye witnesses to his crimes. It's later-moments before he was to be hung- when Dr. Garth's death sentence was commented by the state Governor that he really went to work on his experiments. Later granted a full pardon and being reinstated back in the medical profession Dr. Garth, feeling invincible, goes bonkers in him murdering any one who refuses to under go or rejects his "youth" treatment even his best and most trusting friends! One of Dr. Garth's very talented and elderly friends the world renowned concert pianist Victor Sondina, Pedro de Cordoba, who in fact, against his better judgment,consented to his crazy experiment ended up not being cured from the aging process, like Garth promised him, but being strangled by the crazed scientist who just lost control of his senses!It was when the helpless Dr. Garth almost ended up strangling his own daughter Martha, who only survived her father's insanity by almost dropping dead from fright, that he finally realized what a complete nut and psycho killer he really was. It was then that Dr. Garth decided to let the law exact justice on his troubled soul and also ended up, in again losing control of his actions, having the state save the expense of hanging him!

Karloff often portrayed characters who were torn between good and evil - memorably in THE BLACK ROOM where he played twins, but I have never seen him do such a great job of acting as he does in this film.It opens with him portraying an old, weak, good intentioned doctor - a sympathetic and at times pathetic character. But once he injects himself with a serum that was made from tainted blood, that of a serial murder, he changes. He is younger in appearance and action, and he is a killer, a tortured one, but a chilling one as well. It's great to watch.While the movie has the weakness of being a cheaper B-film, there is still a lot of good work in it. The camera work with the use of light and shadow is exceptional, the music is better than in some other Karloff films I've watched, and the scenes involving blood are almost too strong to watch.Often in these films there are times when you think they could have been much better with a bigger budget, but they still accomplish so much. The scene where the doctor's daughter goes into his lab and the door closes behind her, shutting us out for just a moment, gave me a chill as good as something from Alfred Hitchcock's FRENZY.So catch this little known gem and enjoy it.

Boris Karloff, typecast in the horror genre, was one of our most underrated film actors. Here is a typical film of his middle career that showcases his versatile skills, equally strong as the benign, elderly scientist and his murderous, strangling younger self. This b-picture packs a lot of atmosphere and suspense into it's hour running time. Any shortcomings cannot be blamed on anyone but the screenwriter, Robert D. Andrews, who was just trying to keep things moving- not such a bad thing, actually. Nick Grinde does an excellent job making the most out of the script and witness Karloff's fireside confession for an example of the film's above average cinematography. It's also nice to see Karloff side by side with Edward Van Sloan again nine years after Frankenstein. If you need proof of Boris Karloff's talent and charisma aside from Frankenstein, check out Before I Hang, as well as The Black Room, The Body Snatcher, and Targets. I wish we had a star like him today...