Review – The Man They Could Not Hang

Well, technically they did hang him. He just didn’t stay dead. A scientist (Boris Karloff) invents a device that will revive the freshly deceased, which will in theory allow surgeons to kill their patients, perform surgery without struggling with anesthesia, and then bring them back to life at the end. But his first human volunteer dies when the police interrupt the experiment before the good doctor can revive him. Convicted of murder and sentenced to death, our hero swears revenge on the judge, jury and prosecutor. Naturally this seems like an idle threat until the doctor’s assistant uses his device to bring him back to life. He picks off six jurors individually, but then he goes after the rest by luring them all to his booby-trapped house. The picture has its moments – such as the odd revival device, a series of bottles and tubes that doesn’t look like it would do all that much – but for the most part it’s a run-of-the-mill mad scientist revenge picture. Mildly amusing