Young medical student Bob Roberts has volunteered to participate in a very risky experiment conducted by Dr. Henryk Savaard, which will involve killing him and then using a special artificial heart designed by Savaard to restore him to life. The experiment goes along fairly smoothly until Roberts' fiance, Nurse Betty Crawford, rushes to the police, fearing for his life. When they arrive at his house, Savaard has his assistant, Lang, hide in the cellar with the apparatus, and despite the doctor's pleas to give him a chance to restore Roberts to life, Lieutenant Shane arrests him for murder, as police surgeon Stoddard pronounces the student dead, with no earthly way of bringing him back. During his trial, Savaard takes the stand in his defense, trying to explain to the jury the method in which his invention works and what it could mean for the future of medical science, but the prosecutor, District Attorney Drake, is unswayed and asks for the jury to ensure he can never again take a human life by judging him guilty and sentencing him to death. After 60 hours of deliberation, the jury does find Savaard guilty and condemn him to die, but before he's taken away, Savaard addresses all those who've ensured his death, including the jury, Drake, Crawford, Stoddard, and Judge Bowman, not only confronting them about all those they've doomed in the future with their decision but also insisting that they will receive a grave punishment for what they've done. Before he's hanged, he signs his body over to Lang, who retrieves it after the execution and uses the artificial heart to restore him to life. Having lost his faith in humanity, feeling they are incapable of doing good with his invention, Savaard vows revenge on those he threatened in court. Over the following three months, six of the jurors are found dead, all having apparently hanged themselves, and one night, the remaining jurors, along with Bowman, Drake, Lt. Shane, Dr. Stoddard, and Betty Crawford, are lured to Savaard's house. After appearing to them, he traps them inside and prepares to kill them one by one through various traps he's planted within. Now, it seems that only his daughter, Janet, can save those remaining from her deranged father's wrath.
This leads to what is, by and large, Karloff's best scene, as well as quite possibly the best scene in the entire film, as he addresses the court before he's taken away. He starts out by saying, "You who have condemned me, I know your kind. Your forbears poisoned Socrates, burned Joan of Arc, hanged, tortured all those whose offense was to bring light into darkness. For you to condemn me in my work is a crime so shameful that the judgement of history will be against you for all the years to come." Focusing primarily on Drake, he adds, "You, Mr. Prosecutor, are guilty of murdering not only me but countless thousands who might have lived had you not destroyed the only man who could save their lives. When your last moment comes, always remember that you killed the one man who could have made your life secure." Next turning to Betty Crawford, he tells her, "Although the stupid, unthinking world may approve what you have done, in your heart you know that but for your treachery, the boy you loved could be alive today. If anyone is responsible for his death, you killed him, and for that murder, you will live and die in the contempt and loathing of your own heart." Now focusing on the jury, he tells them, "When those you love best lie dying, think back to this moment when you held their salvation in your hands and threw it away. Always remember I offered you life, and you gave me death." Judge Bowman tells him that's enough but Savaard has one last thing to say to him: "And you who are about to sentence me, after my death, you will be overtaken by a punishment far more terrible than anything you could do to me." Savaard may come across as somewhat megalomaniacal in this speech, acting as if he's God, but Karloff is able to keep him sympathetic, despite how threatening he gets, and come the night of his execution, he says one final goodbye to his beloved daughter, Janet, telling her that he wants her to remember him as being alive and happy. He adds that he's given his body to science, and later, what he meant becomes clear when Lang arrives to make the final preparations to claim his body, saying that he has some "special" equipment prepared to perform an "interesting" experiment on him. After that, right before he's to die, Savaard is visited by a priest and admits to him that he always remained skeptical about the idea of God, but when asked, "Can't you conceive of a truth too great for the human mind to analyze?", he answers, "Tonight, no, but tomorrow I may know better."
Following the execution, Lang takes Savaard's body back to his house and uses his own device to bring him back to life, only to learn that the doctor has no intention of sharing the results of his successful experiment with mankind, feeling that they will only see him as an undead freak. He then rests up for what he feels must be done, and then, over the next three months, he kills six of the jurors, making it look as if they hanged themselves (you eventually learned that he also killed Lang, as he had tried to stop him). Finally, he lures Judge Bowman, Drake, Betty Crawford, Lt. Shane, and the remaining jurors to his house, where he shocks them by appearing to them, alive and well. Initially, it seems as though it's to warn them of a plot against their lives but, when they sit down to dinner, he makes it clear that he's the one who'll be doing the killing out of revenge for their condemning him to death. Under Bowman's orders, they attempt to take him, but the judge falls prey to one of his traps and he manages to elude them in the chaos, trapping them in the dining room and the room adjoining it, while he watches from his laboratory and tells them of exactly when they're going to die so that they can know the dread that he felt while waiting his execution. He manages to kill Clifford Kearney, the foreman of the jury, before Janet, having been called by reporter Scoop Foley, arrives at the house and, learning that her father is alive, confronts him in his laboratory. Savaard tries to send her away so she won't be caught up in what he describes as "retribution" rather than revenge, telling her that he has now completely lost faith in humanity and that he will not allow them to twist his invention into something destructive like every other gift from science, adding that it dies with him. He sums up how far gone he is by adding, "They killed the man I was. All that's left is the will to hate and to destroy," and even says that he's made it so all of the clues of what's happened will point to Lang. Not wanting to hurt Janet, as he describes her as the only thing that was ever good in his life, Savaard is forced to lock her in a closet in the lab to keep her out of his way, eventually letting her out when she promises to leave. But, when she sacrifices herself to save his intended victims, he's forced to abandon the safety of his lab and rush to her aid, resulting in him getting fatally shot. He manages to save her life with his artificial heart but, before he dies, destroys it to ensure once and for all that it will never be used for any wrongdoing.
Those who Savaard comes to see as his enemies are a group of people who refuse to listen to him, both during his arrest and the trial, and who he comes to see as ignorant, unbelieving idiots. While he's not present in the courtroom and, therefore, is not directly threatened by Savaard, Lt. Shane (Don Beddoe) is still an obvious target since he's the one who arrested him and refused to listen to his claims that he could restore Bob Roberts to life, saying that he risked being ridiculed for doing so. More than likely, he's the one who shoots Savaard after Janet is electrocuted (it's so dark during that scene, it's really hard to tell). Similarly, Dr. Stoddard (Joe De Stefani), the police surgeon, finds his claims as being completely ridiculous, which he testifies to during the trial, and writes Savaard off as a homicidal maniac, much to the doctor's frustration. He, in particular, comes to eat his words when he and everyone else are greeted by the revived Savaard at his house, with the doctor even allowing him to examine the scars from the surgery that repaired his broken neck, and he's the one who uses the artificial heart to restore Janet's life, through Savaard's guidance. Drake (Roger Pryor), the district attorney and prosecutor, paints Savaard as a man who, if released, would more than likely commit murder in the name of science again and, therefore, requests that the jury not only see that he's guilty but also vote to have him executed to ensure that such a thing won't happen. He also comes across as rather smug during the trial when you see him sitting across from Savaard as he tries to explain the ultimate goal of his work, smiling in a confident, disbelieving manner, but he isn't so smug when Savaard accuses him of killing thousands of people he could have saved in the future, including himself. Judge Bowman (Charles Trowbridge) is probably the one who bares Savaard the least amount of ill will but becomes a target for sentencing him and is the one who he uses to lure everyone to his house, sending them fake wires that portend to have come from the judge. Bowman is more aggravated and confused than frightened when he shows up at the Savaard house, seeing the doctor, revived or not, as nothing more than a crackpot and tries to have him taken away, only to die when he's electrocuted by touching the electrified grill trapping them in the dining room. Finally, Clifford Kearney (Dick Curtis), the foreman of the jury, is one of those who voted for Savaard to be hanged, although it seemed more like he wanted to just come to a decision so they could end the ongoing deliberation (that said, though, he did specify that their purpose was to come to a decision of "guilty," leaving out "not guilty" entirely). At the house, he's the second to die after Bowman, despite everyone's attempts to protect him, when he's tricked into getting on the phone with his business partner and is killed by a very powerful needle hidden within it. (Being a big Three Stooges fan, I recognized Curtis as someone who was a baddy in a lot of those shorts, and the same goes for John Tyrrell, who appears here as the juror named Sutton.)
Lang (Byron Foulger), Savaard's assistant, is the only victim who starts off as a friend, as he dutifully aids Savaard in the experiment involving Bob Roberts and, when the police show up, the doctor has him take the artificial heart and hide with it in the house's basement until later. When Savaard is sentenced to death, Lang, claiming to be a professor, is given access to his body following the hanging, surreptitiously letting him know that all the preparations have made for his revival afterward. Following what he learned from Savaard's teachings, Lang, having surgically repaired his broken neck, uses the heart to revive him, having to increase the speed of the pumping action and breaking part of it in order to make it work. Lang is convinced that the world will pay homage to the reality of Savaard's genius when he makes his revival known, only to be surprised when he makes it clear that he has no intention of sharing it with a world that he feels will only see him as a freak and doesn't deserve it. He becomes concerned when Savaard adds that he must rest in order to, "Gain strength and power for what I have to do," and later, when Janet confronts her father, he reveals that he killed Lang when he threatened to expose him and his plans for revenge.
While it started out as something of a "poverty row" studio, by the time of The Man They Could Not Hang, Columbia Pictures was starting to make a name for itself amongst the majors with the success of Frank Capra's films, like It Happened One Night, Lost Horizon, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. That said, though, the studio still specialized mainly in B-movies, made on shoestring budgets and very short shooting schedules, and that's definitely the case here. While it still turned out as a fairly well-done little flick, it's clear that it was seen as little more than a quickie programmer, as it's not only very short but was shot in around three weeks and was released a little over a month after filming was completed. As a result, there's not much that makes it stand out from all of the other horror films being made around that time: save for the electrified grill in Savaard's house, there are no special effects whatsoever, the sets look nice but are quite basic, as is the cinematography, and 98% of it is without music, with what little you hear being generic stock music. Going back to the sets, there's no production designer or art director listed in the credits and there are none to be found on IMDB and other sites, which suggests that they were simply leftovers from other films. Like I said, they do look good, like Savaard's laboratory, the courtroom where a good chunk of the first and second acts take place, the dimly lit jury room, and the prison where Savaard is kept in the months leading up to his execution, which has a nicely uncomfortable, harsh feel to it, but, again, they're nothing to write home about at all. Savaard's big, rambling house, where the third act is set, is definitely the biggest standout set due to its sheer size and lavishness, which makes it a little disappointing that Savaard merely traps them in the dining room and the room adjoining it. I think it would have made the climax more exciting if the entire house was a deathtrap, with Savaard still watching and plotting from the safety of his laboratory, but they probably didn't have the time or money to do that.
The cinematography, which was courtesy of Benjamin H. Kline, does look very nice and slick, making the movie come off as more prestigious than it actually was, but if you go into the film expecting any camerawork that's Hitchcockian, you're being awfully optimistic. There are a couple of nice shots, like when you see Savaard's shadow on the inside wall of his cell when Janet comes to see him one last time before his execution, some nicely tilted angles in the room where the reporters are waiting for the hanging to commence, and a handful of well-done overhead shots, like in the courtroom, the jury room, and during the climax in the house, but's about it. There isn't much to be said in regards to the editing department, either, other than the sensational newspaper headlines that come flying at the screen as the trial progresses and a couple of montages of calendar pages turning to illustrate the passage of time. That said, there are a few editing touches here that I do like, such as when the film cuts from Savaard being led into the death chamber to several jurors and others who condemned him listening to a news report on the radio of how his execution was carried out earlier that evening, and how, during the climax, when Savaard lets his victims know when they are to die, it'll cut back and forth between them and a nearby clock, which becomes especially tense in the moments leading up to Clifford Kearney's death.
Like I said in the introduction, the climax can be seen as something of a precursor to the Saw franchise, specifically the second one, as it deals with people trapped in a house that's equipped with deathtraps. Of course, the traps themselves are literally nothing when compared to the stuff in those movies (for that matter, the 1935 Universal horror film The Raven, which featured Karloff along with Bela Lugosi and can also be seen as an inspiration for the Saw franchise, has more bite to it, as it was made in the waning days of the Pre-Code era) and they constitute only three out of four instances of onscreen violence in the whole film. Savaard's hanging, his murder of Lang, and the deaths of the six jurors in the months following his execution all happen offscreen, and when we get to the climax in his house, he only manages to kill Judge Bowman and Clifford Kearney. Bowman is killed when he ignores Savaard's warning not to try to leave the house and attempts to open the electrified grill that's trapped them in the adjoining one, getting shocked to death in the process, while Kearney suffers a particularly cringe-inducing death when a poison-tipped needle that's been placed inside of a phone pierces through his ear and straight into his brain. When the time comes for Betty Crawford to meet her end, he attempts to kill her with a rifle, using a flashlight strapped to it to get around their having turned the lights off to try to protect themselves, but he misses and is almost shot himself by Lt. Shane. This forces him to retreat and it's then that he lets Janet go, leading into her sacrificing herself to free everyone else and to try to bring her father's better nature back out.
The setup of this place is so interesting that, re-watching the film, it makes me wish the filmmakers had more time and money with which to spend on it, as I would've liked to have seen more. Like I said before, I especially wish that the entire house was open to them and filled with potential deathtraps, instead of them being confined to two rooms, especially since you get the feeling that there's more here than what we see. Along with the electrified grill and the phone, their discovery of the metal walls that cover the other side of the windows and the doors, the PA system connected to the laboratory that Savaard uses to tell them of their impending doom, and the electrified railing on the floor above the sitting room makes me wonder what other means he intended to both kill and make them feel helpless with. We know by the end of the movie that his arsenal also included a switch he could throw in order to kill them all at once, which could've possibly alluded to the house being blown up, and I like how meticulous he was in luring them all to the house, using fake wires supposedly sent by Judge Bowman and a telegram from "Janet" to get Bowman himself there, as well as anonymously hiring some servants to serve them and then sending them away before beginning his rampage, so as not to harm anyone whom he feels doesn't deserve it. While the movie is still a nice little time-waster as is, all this stuff makes me wish that there had been more of an expansion on this section of the story, as I think it would've helped it be far more memorable.
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