Movie Review: The Man They Could Not Hang (1939) directed by Nick Grinde
Dr. Henryk Savaard (Boris Karloff) has a radical idea to improve the chance of successful surgery. Much of the risk of an operation comes from the fact that the patient is alive, their body still functioning. Make a mistake, and you kill the patient. But suppose, now hear me out, suppose the patient was already dead? The surgeon could take as much time as he liked and cut where necessary without worry. The only problem then would be returning the patient to life. And as it happens, Dr. Savaard has invented an external artificial heart which, in theory, will jumpstart the body’s functions, bringing the “dead” patient back among the living.
Dr. Savaard’s student Bob has volunteered to be the guinea pig for an experiment to test the device. Unfortunately, nurse Betty Crawford (Ann Doran) gets cold feet and goes to the police. The cops arrive just as Dr. Savaard and his assistant Lang (Byron Foulger) are figuring out the details of the pump’s operation. Despite the pleas of Dr. Savaard, his daughter Janet (Lorna Gray) and sympathetic journalist “Scoop” Foley (Robert Wilcox), the police refuse to let him continue the reanimation process. The ensuing autopsy kills Bob for real, but it’s Dr. Savaard who’s placed on trial.
An unsympathetic judge and prosecutor, as well as several scientifically illiterate jurors, make it an open and shut case against Dr. Savaard. You can see the milk of human kindness draining out of him. When he is sentenced to be hanged, Dr. Savaard makes a “you’ll all be sorry” speech. He seems unusually calm as he faces his doom.
And no surprise there, for a disguised Lang claims the hanged man’s body, fixes the broken neck, and uses the pump to revive Savaard. Unfortunately, it looks like the oxygen deprivation to the brain has done some damage, and Dr. Savaard is no longer interested in benefiting mankind.
Six supposed suicides by hanging of the jurors later, the remaining people who were responsible for Savaard’s death (plus “Scoop”) are called together at his old mansion. There the now mad scientist reveals his existence so that he can enjoy killing them one by one.
This horror-tinged thriller holds up pretty well, though actual medical researchers may quarrel with Dr. Savaard’s experimental protocols. There’s ingenious use of death traps and psychology, and Dr. Savaard shifts between sympathetic and maniacal with ease.
None of the hangings take place on-screen, and there’s no blood. Some viewers may agree with the prosecutor’s attitude towards the prospect of wholesale organ transplants. And because this movie was made under the Hays Code, evil cannot prosper in the end.
This is a short film, just over an hour long, and will work well as part of a double feature, or when you want a complete shock story in a limited amount of time.
