[HorrorScience] Before I Hang (1940)

Today I am going to talk about a film starring Boris Karloff, one of the great classic horror film actors, who most people remember for having played Frankenstein's monster. in the 1931 film.

This time I will talk about a lesser-known film, which deals with topics such as euthanasia, old age and the side effects of practicing certain types of experiments.

The elderly Dr. John Garth (Boris Karloff) is convicted of having carried out euthanasia to a dying patient who begged him to end his life so that he would not have to continue suffering the terrible pain he was suffering.

Despite the kind doctor's explanations, the judge considers that he has no right to take a life and sends him to prison, where he will be hanged in a few weeks. With his destiny written, Dr. Garth regrets not having been able to complete his research into a cure for old age, something he had been working on for many years.

After a week in jail, Garth receives the proposal to continue working on his experiments until the day they execute it, this idea comes from Dr. Ralph Howard, who is very interested in Garth's research.

During the following weeks and under the watchful eye of the prison guards (and the curious cleaning boy), both scientists will work day and night to demonstrate that old age is something that can be remedied, as if it were a disease.

However, in order to make the special serum that prevents aging, some ingredients are needed that the prison can hardly provide, so both doctors use the blood of a recently hanged murderer, in order to continue with the experiment.

And finally the day came, Dr. Garth is going to be hanged in a few hours and decides to spend his last minutes with his experiment partner, whom He begs her to try the serum on him., because since he is going to be executed shortly, there is no problem if something goes wrong and causes his death. Dr. Ralph accepts his partner's proposal and injects him with the serum a few minutes before the good news arrives: Dr. Garth's death sentence has been changed to life imprisonment, which will allow him to continue experimenting from prison.

The side effects of the special serum soon appear, causing Dr. Garth to spend a few days in the hospital, after losing consciousness. When he wakes up, he finds that he has noticeably rejuvenated, he no longer needs glasses to read and many of his wrinkles and gray hair have disappeared. His partner congratulates him and they both decide to continue with the research to cure humanity of old age.

However, something begins to go wrong, because the moment Dr. Ralph Howard decides to undergo the same serum that rejuvenated Garth, he begins to act strangely, with sweating, trembling and finally, with a change of attitude, which transforms the peaceful doctor into a violent being with homicidal desires, causing the death of Dr. Ralph and the cleaning boy, who was passing by.

After that event, Garth suffers temporary amnesia and calls the police, who deduce that the cleaning boy entered to steal something from the laboratory and Dr. Ralph caught him, leading to the fatal confrontation between the two and Garth's injuries.

Shortly after,  the veteran doctor is pardoned by the state, so he decides to return to live in his house, where he will invite his closest friends to try the serum that made him rejuvenate, something that only one of them agrees to. While Dr. Garth prepares everything for the injection of the serum, he feels those tremors again and his gaze suddenly changes, becoming once again the homicidal being that ended Dr. Ralph's life.

What will happen to Dr. Garth and his cure for old age?

Before I Hang It is a film that has very varied overtones, it begins with the strong rejection of euthanasia of that time, which leads a kind doctor to end up sentenced to death and ends up being something similar to a Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde with his personality changes.

Karloff's performance is very good, despite having played a wide variety of villains in horror films, he manages to awaken tenderness when he plays the old Dr. Garth in the first minutes of the film, tenderness that will disappear when the character begins to act violently, where we will see a Karloff, which fans of classic horror films are already used to seeing. The rest of the actors are correct and do not clash, it is nice to see Edward Van Sloan again (Van Helsing in the version of Dracula 1931) and Evelyn Keyes (remembered for participating in Gone with the wind).

Curiosities about the film:

• A year before filming this film, Karloff already filmed another with the rope as the main theme, that film was The Man they couldn't hang and although its story has no relation to Before I Hang They have many similarities between themselves (same director, same screenwriter, same main actor and an almost identical promotional poster, with Karloff's face in the background, a rope in front of him and a couple at the bottom)
• The working title of this film was “The Wizard of Death” which coincidentally is the title it had in Spain (el Mago de la muerte).