Retrospektive 2018

The Man They Could Not Hang

Nick Grinde
USA 1939
64 min
V'18

„Ein B-Film-Regisseur muss mehr Tricks kennen als Harry Houdini“, meinte Nick Grinde, „und er muss sie sofort aus dem Hut ziehen – nicht erst nach dem Mittagessen.“ Grinde wusste nur zu gut, wovon er sprach. Sein unterhaltsames Horror-Feature THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG zeigt eine von Boris Karloffs besten Darstellungen. Wie viele B-Filme enthält auch dieser Verweise auf seine eigenen Produktionsbedingungen. Ein Zeitungsredakteur weist seinen Reporter an: „Machen Sie es bizarr, machen Sie es dramatisch und machen Sie es bissig!“ – Solche Worte dürfte auch Grinde öfters von den Studios gehört haben.

Mit THE CRIME OF DR. CRESPI

 

Written by Karl Brown, for years a cameraman for D. W. Griffith (he also tried directing, not without success, before settling on writing), and directed by the affable Nick Grinde (who once wrote, “The B director has to know more tricks than Harry Houdini did, and he has to pull them out of his hat right now—not after lunch”), this ingenious and entertaining film is the vehicle for one of Boris Karlo’s best performances. Everything that happens in the film is fun and interesting, and not a moment is wasted. The film ends with an unanswered question hanging in the air; this ending comes, unfortunately, too soon (interrupting Karlo’s plan of serial revenge, which has the full support of every viewer of the film), but in that untimeliness a bleak and awful judgment about the finality of existence is expressed in an ideally dry and succinct way. Like all B-movies, THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG is a commentary on its own production. The newspaper editor instructs his reporter — “Make it weird, make it dramatic, and make it snappy!” — in words Grinde and Brown might have heard in a meeting with the head of their unit. (Chris Fujiwara)

With THE CRIME OF DR. CRESPI

Credits
  • Lorna Gray
  • Robert Wilcox
  • Roger Pryor
  • Don Beddoe
  • Ann Doran
  • Joe De Stefani
  • Boris Karloff
  • Karl Brown
  • George Wallace Sayre
  • Leslie T. White
  • Benjamin H. Kline
Columbia Pictures
35 mm
bw
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