Before I Hang (Nick Grindé, 1940)

A slow-burning creeper of a movie, Before I Hang takes a quiet, methodical approach to the building of its horror (half the movie is just old guys talking about science or bureaucratic matters in a prison or aging), but that horror is presented in genuinely menacing and unsettling style, thanks to the skills of lead actor Boris Karloff and the ability of veteran b-movie director Nick Grindé to get some visual impact from a few studio sets.

The film opens with a courtroom scene. Dr. John Garth (Karloff) has been found guilty of murder and is at his sentencing hearing. He's an unlikely killer. For years, Garth has been working on a serum to dramatically slow, or eliminate entirely, the aging process. An elderly man in terrible pain agreed to test the serum, but Garth was unable to make it work. In agony, the patient begged Garth to kill him. Garth relented, in an early instance of assisted suicide, and was arrested and tried for murder. Garth explains himself in a statement before the judge, accepts his fate, and urges the medical establishment to continue his research. He's sentenced to execution by hanging in exactly one month. (What is this? Texas?) (Don't yell at me, I live in Texas.)

His daughter, Martha (Evelyn Keyes), is distraught, but she vows to fight for a stay of execution alongside Garth's assistant, Dr. Paul Ames (Bruce Bennett), a classic old-timey goodie-two-shoes snooze who has an extremely anemic and chemistry-free semi-romantic attachment to Martha. Every '30s and '40s horror movie requires one milquetoast ultra-Caucasian bore. It's the law. Usually, a vivacious and charismatic woman gets stuck with the snooze for a romantic partner, but Keyes is pretty milquetoast herself here. I've seen her do much more exciting work in some film noir classics, and her personal life was full of nonstop flings with charismatic and famous men, but she's overshadowed here by most of her outfits in a nothing part that requires her to be concerned, supportive, admiring, or unconscious after fainting from fear, depending on the scene.

Once in prison, Garth is approached by the sympathetic warden, Thompson (Ben Taggart), and a crusading colleague, Dr. Ralph Howard (Edward Van Sloan). Thompson makes Garth an offer. He can't stop his execution, but he can let Garth and Howard set up a lab in the prison and work on perfecting the serum in the three weeks left in Garth's life. Garth agrees, and whaddaya know, the dudes think they've got the serum working within that allotted time, but they need to test it on a human. The serum requires blood for its mixture, and Garth persuades Howard to use some blood from a freshly executed three-time murderer. He gets Howard to inject him with the killer-blood mixture on that last day of his life. After Garth is executed by hanging, the plan is that Howard will do the autopsy and see if the serum worked at de-aging the now deceased Garth. Howard will then carry on Garth's work with boring Ames.

Guess what? Garth's sentence is commuted to life in prison by the governor after a last-minute phone call. Garth is already looking, feeling, and medically proving to be a man twenty years younger, but he's got that murderer blood in his veins. He's going to get that bloodlust soon, unbeknownst to him and the other people unlucky enough to be part of his life. 

After some wild events lead to a pardon from the governor, Garth is a free man, hoping to test the serum out on his geezer buddies, but the evil blood in him has plans of its own. Karloff is great in this part. He convinces as the elderly, kindly, determined old doctor, makes a few minor adjustments to show us that the doctor now has the energy of a middle-aged man, and does a lot of great shit with just a few facial expressions to become a menacing presence. A more hammy actor would have torpedoed this movie or turned it into kitsch, but Karloff gently guides it. He makes the implausible plausible and human, and the scenes where the killer's essence has taken control of him are genuinely creepy.

Nick Grindé was never a household name or considered one of the greats, but he was an experienced b-movie director, and he makes Before I Hang look good even though most of the movie is old guys talking in rooms. It's lit and shot in classic Hollywood style, and Grindé and his cinematographer Benjamin H. Kline make excellent use of shadows and light. I especially love the shot of Garth appearing outside the door of his pianist friend Victor (Pedro de Cordoba) late at night. (Speaking of pianists, a scene where Victor plays piano during a small gathering at Garth's home goes on for a hilariously long time, even though the movie is only 62 minutes long. Pour a drink, here's four minutes of piano playing.)

Before I Hang is a relatively minor film in the horror pantheon and is not one of Karloff's better known movies, but I admire its quiet approach and think most of it is pretty effective. The horror scenes are legitimately unsettling, and there's something that just works in stories about a good person infected with evil if the right people play those parts. If you like your horror on the quieter and more slowly menacing side, I recommend this one.