Before I Hang

Dir. Nick Grinde

62 Minutes

USA

1940

Starring: Boris Karloff, Evelyn Keyes, Bruce Bennett, Edward Van Sloan, Ben Taggart

**/*****

Quickie Karloff science-fiction/horror picture reunites the star with director Nick Grinde from the oddly similar The Man They Could Not Hang the year before. Karloff plays Dr. John Garth, a scientist attempting to invent a serum to prolong human life. But after an experiment goes wrong with an aid, he is sentenced to death by hanging in four weeks time. He attempts to complete his work before the execution date and decides to test the serum on himself under the logic that he would be hanged before it could have any effect. But the potion does have an effect, turning John into a much younger man with one unfortunate side effect: a homicidal urge to kill.

Before I Hang works alongside the previous Grinde collaboration but also films like The Devil Commands, The Ape, and even, to a different extent, Black Friday, of Karloff’s “sympathetic” mad scientist character: genuinely good people driven to extremes as a result of their scientific obsessions. The film is a solid example of Karloff’s work in that particular genre and has its entertainment value within the confines of its routine, with an assembly line of beats that mainly work because of his genuine commitment to the bit. Grinde mostly keeps the action moving in the right direction without doing anything particularly noteworthy, though even at barely an hour in length the narrative manages to find moments where it slogs, and in that respect it is a notch below the more fun earlier picture.

October 26th, 2019