Before I Hang (1940)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Nick Grinde

Writers:

Robert Hardy Andrews (story)
Karl Brown (story)

Release Date:

17 September 1940 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Beware! When Karloff stops the clock, your hour has come!

Plot:

A physician on death row for a mercy killing is allowed to experiment on a serum using a criminals' blood, but secretly tests it on himself. He gets a pardon, but finds out he's become a Jekyll-&-Hyde. |

Plot Keywords:

Serum | Criminal Blood | Pardon | Experiment | Mercy Killing

Cast

Boris Karloff	...	Dr. John Garth
Evelyn Keyes	...	Martha Garth
Bruce Bennett	...	Dr. Paul Ames
Edward Van Sloan	...	Dr. Ralph Howard
Ben Taggart	...	Warden Thompson
Pedro de Cordoba	...	Victor Sondini
Wright Kramer	...	George Wharton
Bertram Marburgh	...	Stephen Barclay
Don Beddoe	...	Capt. McGraw
Robert Fiske	...	District Attorney
Kenneth MacDonald	...	Anson, Prison Guard
Frank Richards	...	Otto Krone

Runtime:

62 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

USA:Unrated

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

This film was shot in the house later used in the 1945 title The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) staring Hurd Hatfield.

Quotes:

Dr. John Garth: Well, you want to go on living, don't you?
Victor Sondini: Why, I've had a very full life, I... After all, man's span of life is only supposed to be threescore and ten.
Dr. John Garth: Who made that rule? George, your old age is a disease, and I can cure it!

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Lady with the Torch (1999)

Required Viewing

I am not exactly a connoisseur of Karloff, but this film makes me want to find out more about the great master--his performance in this was truly endearing, not to mention gripping.

Furthermore, this movie should be be required viewing for modern film-makers, because it really is a masterpiece of succinctness. Not a single frame of film is wasted! The movie only lasts for 62 minutes (although I'm sure the version I saw, early one morning, lasted a good ten minutes less than that!) and yet it crams more plot into that small timescale than a great many drawn-out 3 hour epics! And yet, the real genius of the work is that it does not for a single moment seem *rushed*. Everything flows smoothly right up to the final curtain, and you are left with the feeling of having watched a "full-length" feature--a truly astonishing achievement! I glanced at my watch at about the halfway stage , not out of impatience, but out of sheer wonder at how on earth everything was going to be wrapped up to a neat conclusion within only 25 minutes or so!

This film, more than any other that I can recall, bridges the gap between the frenetic single-reeler comedies of the 20s (which crammed a hell of a lot in, at the expense of a more welcome relaxed pace), and the modern day feature. If there really was five full minutes of piano-playing in this, I can't say that it perturbed me in any way whatsoever--it merely helped to set the melancholy mood of the piece. And that five minutes of a one hour film can be dedicated solely to mood setting, without generating any feeling of slow-down, is something really quite remarkable.

A great genius *can* make a 4 hour film work... but such directors are *extremely* few and far between (e.g. Kurosawa, von Stroheim). All others should learn from the director of this work: the Occam's Razor of feature films.