It's sad that Before I Hang which started off with so much possibility, ended up with Boris Karloff playing yet another mad scientist. The film was alluding to stem cell research three generations before it was a possibility.
The film begins with Karloff receiving a death sentence for a 'mercy' killing of a patient. In light of what subsequently happens you've got to wonder if Karloff was telling the whole truth as he spoke before the death sentence was passed.
Passed it was though, but Boris had the good fortune to get to a prison where the doctor, Edward Van Sloan, was a fan of his work and he persuades warden Ben Taggart to allow to him to work with him in the last few weeks of his life.
Of course those are some eventful weeks, made even longer when the governor commutes his sentence. Bodies start piling up all around Boris when he starts injecting himself with that concoction he's brewed up.
Karloff will of course please his legion of fans, he gives them the Boris they've come to expect. But I think this film could have been so much more and said so much more if not relegated to Columbia's B picture factory.
The film begins with Karloff receiving a death sentence for a 'mercy' killing of a patient. In light of what subsequently happens you've got to wonder if Karloff was telling the whole truth as he spoke before the death sentence was passed.
Passed it was though, but Boris had the good fortune to get to a prison where the doctor, Edward Van Sloan, was a fan of his work and he persuades warden Ben Taggart to allow to him to work with him in the last few weeks of his life.
Of course those are some eventful weeks, made even longer when the governor commutes his sentence. Bodies start piling up all around Boris when he starts injecting himself with that concoction he's brewed up.
Karloff will of course please his legion of fans, he gives them the Boris they've come to expect. But I think this film could have been so much more and said so much more if not relegated to Columbia's B picture factory.