Before I Hang
Reviewed by Edward Larsen Terkelsen

USA, NR, 62 m, 1940
Directed by Nick Grindé. Stars Boris Karloff, Evelyn Keyes, Bruce Bennett, et al.

Nick Grindé’s daft but impressively succinct Before I Hang stars Boris Karloff as Dr. John Garth, a softhearted physician/scientist whose “mercy killing” of an elderly patient afflicted with chronic and immobilizing pain has won him a date with the hangman’s noose. I’m not sure how strongly this premise resonated with moviegoers in 1940, but contemporary audiences will find it hard not to think of Dr. Kevorkian, the euthanasia advocate who set off a major hullabaloo in the ‘90s for facilitating the suicides of 130 people (most of whom were not terminally ill). But what places Dr. Garth poles apart from Dr. Death is that he’s committed to extending life; his decision to free the oldster from his “sleepless, tortured nightmare” by putting him down was made after he had thoroughly exhausted every other known remedy—including an anti-aging serum that he’s been busting his bony arse for years to perfect. At first, it looks like Garth’s dream of a wrinkleless world is going to die with him (an appeal to the Supreme Court proves a merry chase), but then fate (or screenwriter Robert D. Andrews) steps in and everything gets nuttier than a Screwy Squirrel bowel movement. 

While chillin’ on death row, the condemned doc is approached by the big house’s resident bones, Dr. Ralph Howard (Edward Van Sloan), who insists on helping Garth achieve his goal of eighty-sixing oldness. And so with the blessing of the warden (Ben Taggart), the two hit the prison lab (which, surprisingly enough, isn’t equipped with a Jacob’s ladder) and get down to the business of playing God. But seeing how Garth is scheduled to perform his first and last mid-air Lindy Hop in just a few weeks, time is of the essence. (The irony of this situation isn’t lost on our big-brained hero: “A race for life against death,” he muses.) 

Come the eleventh hour, Garth and Howard finally hit upon a formula that promises to substantially increase the life expectancy of their tool-making, cribbage-playing, martini-swilling, baby-aborting, planet-polluting brethren. And yet one very important ingredient is still needed to fashion a practical vaccine: human blood. Howard, who has access to the body of a recently executed three-time killer, has that one covered. But finding a living subject to test the drug on won’t be quite as easy peasy lemon squeezy. There are, after all, potential side effects—like joining the greater number—that need to be considered. So, with only 27 minutes left before he’s suspended into “oblivion,” Garth figures he has nothing to lose by letting himself be the cavy. Friends, you don’t have to be Mother Shipton to foresee what happens next: As soon as Garth receives the injection (straight into his ever-loving ticker), the governor gives the warden a jingle and commutes Garth’s death sentence to life imprisonment. “For, lo, the winter is past,” says Garth, falling into a faint. (Okay, he didn’t say that. I don’t remember what he said, actually, though I have no doubt it was something that would sound kinda weighty to a Southern University at New Orleans student.) 

When Garth regains consciousness, his hair has lost most of its gray, his face is less craggy and potato-chippy, and he no longer needs his granny glasses to find his way around Lionel Banks’ rickety sets. This so amazes Howard that he demands to be the next recipient of Garth’s miracle cure. But something seems a little off with Garth when he’s preparing the works. He looks agitated, distracted, as if he’s trying to suppress an ugly thought. He then pulls out a handkerchief, twists it into a rope, and strangles Howard to death with it. Shortly thereafter, Garth is back to his old self (or the younger version of his old self); the malevolent glow in his eyes has faded out and he has virtually no memory of his crime. The prison officials (witless slugabeds all) attribute Howard’s murder to another inmate (a fat corky who can’t defend himself because, well, Garth offed him, too) and the case is closed. But Garth’s hot streak is far from cooling off: the governor grants him a full pardon. 

The second act of Before I Hang takes place beyond the gates of the pokey, and though the idea of Garth reentering society unaware of the beast that lurks within him is an exciting one, the manner in which it’s carried out is sort of flat, almost anticlimactic. The first thing on Garth’s to-do list is to invite some of his more successful associates to his pad for cocktails and the mother of all sales pitches. In attendance are Victor (Pedro de Cordoba), a pianist; Stephen (Louis B. Mayer look-alike Bertram Marburgh), an architect; and… Uh, I don’t remember who the third man is or what he does for a living. Anyhoodle, Garth tries to impress upon these moneyed geezers that their talents are so central to mankind’s happiness that they have a moral obligation to give his needle of youth a go. Only Victor is game, which, of course, turns out to be to his detriment. For as soon as Garth gets ready to administer the shot, he turns all psycho and sends Victor to that great piano bar in the sky. 

Literalists beware: the science in Before I Hang is shakier than a drunk with spirit fingers. Screenwriter Robert D. Andrews actually expects us to believe that Garth’s sporadic lapses into psychosis are due to the blood that was used in his inoculation. (If Howard had siphoned, say, a pedophile, would Garth have developed an insatiable urge to cruise elementary schools?) There are other howlers that would make the folks behind House of Frankenstein go red, but Garth’s rejection of the circle of life takes the confounded fruitcake: “The human life cell is born to live forever under the right conditions, but when they are combined in us to perform the normal functions of our bodies, they give off poisons which pile up the burden of decay which we call old age. So, death becomes the price we pay for living—for using our brains, our minds, which drive us, wear us out, and eventually kill us.” Huh? Dreadful prose aside, Garth’s orations are so insipid they make your head hurt. Didn’t it ever to occur to this genius that the “human life cell” comes with an expiration date to ensure that the Blue Marble doesn’t become overpopulated? Karloff’s ability to speak such malarkey while keeping a straight face is probably how he earned the moniker “Karloff the Uncanny.” 

Another one of Before I Hang’s many drawbacks is that it doesn’t give Karloff a whole lot of room to stretch. He played this mad doctor jazz for all it was worth in at least a dozen other fear fests—the looniest of the lot being Monogram’s The Ape (which was released the very same year as this one). But just because he’s been there, done that doesn’t mean he’s resting on his laurels and phoning it in (something Mickey Rourke might do). He gives Garth his all, and there are more than a few good character actors on hand to support him. You half-expect to find Bela Lugosi in the role of Howard, but Sloan is a suitable stand-in, largely because he looks and sounds like ol’ Adelbert. (And yet there were moments when he put me in the mind of Philip Baker Hall.) It’s Grindé’s picture, though. His style may be frank and artless, but it’s also awesomely economical: he takes what could’ve easily been two hours of B-grade pap and squeezes it into one. 

August 31, 2011 

© Copyright 2011 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.