Before I Hang (1940)

As Good As It Gets

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

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.

Before I Hang: 3 out of 10: Boris Karloff stars as Dr. Kevorkian in this expose of stem cell research gone wrong.Okay maybe that is not completely accurate but one might certainly think along those lines as a doctor found guilty of a mercy killing is sentenced to hang despite his promising youth serum.Karloff quickly finds himself in a prison experimenting with the blood of a recently hanged killer the clock ticking against his own execution. He injects himself with the serum it works the governor pardons him and he goes off to save the world. Actually that is not completely accurate as well. Apparently the blood came from the prisoner "Abby Normal" and Karloff starts getting that look in his eyes and his over-sized handkerchief out of his pocket and the population of the movie starts dropping precipitously.The movie is poorly directed and despite some initially good albeit rushed ideas it quickly falls into the old blood memory turns man into killer nonsense. The pacing is bizarre with a ton of plot simply explained through voice-over (the hanging verdict in particular seems unlikely as shown) in the first half the second half with Karloff stalking the elderly drags.A weak film that starts of strong and quickly goes nowhere.

The third Boris Karloff "mad doctor" film is an interesting if surprisingly rather dull affair; the star is always worth watching, however, and his role here certainly offers him plenty to sink his teeth into: he starts the film as an old man about to be hanged for a mercy killing, is then rejuvenated through a serum he develops while in prison (the kindly warden having consented to Karloff continuing his experiments there until the time of his execution comes) and finally turns into a strangler (the unfortunate side-effect of the drug which contained the blood cells of a murderer)! Though the supporting cast features several familiar faces, they're all somewhat underused: Evelyn Keyes and Bruce Bennett are certainly among the higher-prolife actors to fill the 'romantic interest' roles in this type of film, but they're just about the most thankless I've ever seen (especially Bennett who has barely 5 minutes of screen time)! Edward van Sloan's presence was especially welcome (having memorably faced-off with Karloff twice before) but, again, his prison doctor here is nowhere near as juicy as his iconic roles in Dracula (1931), FRANKENSTEIN (1931), THE MUMMY (1932) and DRACULA'S DAUGHTER (1936)! Pedro de Cordoba, on the other hand, is quite poignant as Karloff's pianist friend whose career is fading due to his advancing age; of course, Boris is willing to help him out in this regard, but his new-found and uncontrollable murderous instincts prevail! A measure of amusement is also gleaned from noticing the recurring presence of such actors as Roger Pryor, Don Beddoe and Charles Trowbridge in roles which were pretty much reprises of ones they had played in the earlier Columbia Karloffs! On the debit side, the low budget especially shows here in the film's rather dismal sets - the other three of Karloff's serious horror efforts for Columbia made good use of the star's gadget-filled house (THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG [1939]), frozen underground lab (THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES [1940]) and Karloff's imposing cliff-top mansion (THE DEVIL COMMANDS [1941]); besides, the rather clinical experiments become repetitive and the film talky, which is further exacerbated by the regrettable fact that throughout there are few action/horror highlights per se.As far as the film's DVD presentation goes, I found it to be disappointingly lackluster: while the print itself is adequate, there are no scene selections for any of the films in this set (which also proves to be the case with Universal's Karloff collection and the "Inner Sanctum" Set!) nor, for that matter, proper menu screens - have the studios become stingy or what?!

Of the Karloff Columbia Mad Doctor pictures, my very favorite is "The Man With Nine Lives" with "The Devil Commands" a close second followed by "The Man They Could Not Hang" (which was still quite good). Similarly, "Before I Hang" is a good "B" picture with some good scenes such as the experimentation with the model in order to mix the chemicals and serums correctly. Karloff's "Dr. Jekyll - Mr. Hyde" transformations seem to be very hair-raising indeed. As usual, Karloff proves he was one of the best mad scientists of classic shudder cinema. This neat little "B" came with a good supporting cast including Bruce Bennett and Evelyn Keyes.Worthwhile watching with all of your "B" buddies. 7/10.