Today I Hang (1942) Poster

(1942)

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4/10
Necklace or Necktie : It's your choice
kapelusznik1831 January 2015
Warning: Spoilers
****SPOILERS**** Just when out of town in far off Burma jewel importer Jim O'Brien, Walter Woolf King, shows up at the Courtney residence there's man of the house Henry Courtnry, Harry Woods, and Joseph Rand, James Carven,slugging it out with the butler Hobbs, Paul Scardon, just looking on and enjoying the show. It soon becomes clear that there was a falling out among the two about the DeNormand Necklace that the two were struggling it out over that seemed to have suddenly disappeared.

With the man out in the cold O'Brien who was to be cheated out of his share of the $25,000.00 necklace by the two realizing, by showing up a bit too early, he was being shafted. It' really Martha Courtney, Mona Barrie,the later late Henry's wife who's the one trying to get her hands on the necklace and is using and manipulating both O'Brien & Rand to find it for her without them knowing about it.

As things soon turn out Henry is found murdered with O'Brien in who's suitcase the murder weapon was found is arrested for murdering him! Convicted and sentenced to hang O'Brien makes a deal, with Mona's help, with the law that if allowed to escape from death row while on his way to the gallows he'll find Courtney's killer as well as the missing DeNormand necklace. And is given by the courts just four days to do it before the trap door is sprung on him!

****SPOILERS**** Confusing and complected story that has so many plot-holes that it's almost impossible to both follow and understand. What we do get to know is the person who really murdered Courtnry, no big surprise, and at the same time hid the expensive necklace for safe keeping. The only surprise in all this is who was his accomplice that didn't turn out to be, in that kind of person already becoming legendary in these kind of whodunit films, not that much of a surprise either!
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5/10
A Mess, But With Good Performances
boblipton10 March 2020
Walter Woolf King and associates quarrel over the sale of some fancy-schmantzy jewelry. When the guy at the head of the syndicate turns up dead, King is framed by his lying associates, and widow Mona Barrie is missing. He's sentenced to be hanged, but Miss Barrie shows up and starts an elaborate ruse which involves breaking King out of prison.

It's a cheapjack PRC mystery that's so complicated that it winds up ignoring a couple of major plot threads, and the editing is pretty poor; although I thought it was a butchered print, it times in at exactly the original timing. Miss Barrie's performance suggests Eve Arden, and other actors caught in the thrall of PRC's poverty include William Farnum, Sam Bernard, and an uncredited Jimmy Aubrey. This means the acting is good, particularly King's, and the movie, despite its flubs, kept my attention throughout.

King started out in vaudeville, made it to Broadway in 1919, and was a useful and respected baritone in those days. Early talkies found him in operettas, but except for a villainous role in Laurel & Hardy's FRA DIABOLO, the box-office returns weren't there. He showed some talent in a few films in Fox's darkest hours, and his career continued to slide...hence his appearance here. TV offered him more opportunity, he worked pretty regularly through 1978 and died in 1984, aged 84.
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2/10
Ultra low-budget snoozer
scsu197520 November 2022
Walter Woolf King plays an innocent man convicted of murder and facing the hangman's (or is it hangperson's) noose. Appearing in this film should have been punishment enough.

There are no surprises, and the killer's identity is obvious from the start, so there is no suspense. Mona Barrie plays the dead man's wife, who also happens to be King's former squeeze. She helps solve the murder, but does not solve the mystery of why she would act in this film. The aging William Farnum plays the prison warden; he looks like somebody propped him up for his scenes. The inept musical score is ripped off from the East Side Kids movies.

King is okay in his part, but I can't watch him without picturing him singing an aria while Harpo Marx destroys the scenery behind him.

Everyone associated with this bomb should have been sent to the gallows.
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7/10
Wild
dbborroughs6 January 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Oh boy, what a wild movie this is. Any movie that begins with a nonchalant battle in a fancy dining room and goes from there has to be seen to be believed. The plot has something to do with a rich, but corrupt man killed for a valuable necklace (it was the reason for the opening fight). Framed for the murder is the love of the rich man's wife who had been sent off to the wilds in the hope that he would be killed. The widow of course sides with her love and what transpires after that is the movie. Over the top nonsense is a bit of fun in the "I can't believe everything that's going on" sort of way. Best of all its amusing beyond the disbelief with some intriguing characters. And if nothing else its one of the few times a certain cliché about who's behind it all is at least partly right.
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