Director: Nick Grinde
Writers: Karl Brown, George Wallace Sayre
Stars: Boris Karloff, Lorna Gray, Robert Wilcox
Run Time: 1 Hour, 4 Minutes
Link: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1t3no7
Synopsis
Dr. Lang arrives at Dr. Henryk Savaard’s huge home and laboratory and hopes he isn’t too late. Savaard (Karloff) is examining a young man on the table, who is in perfect shape. The man has brought Savaard a new artificial heart. He warns the young man that there may be difficulties with the new heart, but he want to try it. They’re going to “kill” him, switch the heart, and wake him up. They figure it’ll all take about two hours and then they can go out for chop suey afterwards. Betty, Savaard’s nurse and Bob’s girlfriend, begs him not to go through with it, and then runs off.
They start the procedure, and Bob’s heart rate drops to zero. He’s dead, as planned. They turn on the cryogenic unit and it’ll take about thirty minutes for the body to chill. They hook up the glass heart to watch the blood flow. Meanwhile, the nurse goes to the police and screams that Savaard’s about to kill her boyfriend. Everyone rushes to the house and breaks in.
Savaard hears the police outside and gives his partner, Dr. Lang, the heart to hide. The police arrest Savaard as he screams that he can bring Bob back to life in less than an hour. No one listens, and Savaard ends up on trial for murder. Savaard blames his treacherous nurse, Betty. Savaard explains the benefits of a heart transplant, which was complete science fiction in 1939, so, after much deliberation, the jury doesn’t believe him. He is condemned to execution.
Savaard gets to address the jury before sentencing, and he lets them all have it. He swears that they’ll all regret their decision. Savaard’s daughter Janet goes into hiding at the recommendation of her reporter friend. They make arrangements for Dr. Lang to take possession of Savaard’s body for scientific research.
They hang Savaard without incident. Later, Lang takes the body into the lab and hooks it up to the heart machine. The machine explodes from being turned up too high, but it works, bringing Savaard back to life. Lang repairs the broken neck, which was easy to do once Savaard was dead.
Months pass. “Scoop” Foley, the reporter, catches on to the fact that six men have hung themselves, and they were all on the Savaard jury. He returns to Savaard’s house, as do several other people associated with the trial. They’ve all received wires or summons or letters, and they’re all fakes.
Savaard comes in and surprises them. He greets them personally. He claims that the fiend who has killed the six jurors wants to kill all of them as well. The judge is electrocuted as he tries to leave. All the doors and windows are barred. He announces over loudspeaker that they will now all die, one by one.
They do.
Janet comes home unexpectedly. Savaard explains that he killed Lang, and his invention will go to the grave with him. He tells her to leave or stay out of the way. Janet touches the metal grill and is also electrocuted, and one of the men shoots Savaard.
Savaard is still not dead, and he hooks Janet up to the machine and saves her life. Janet comes back to life in front of the others; Savaard has proven he was right. Savaard gets his gun and destroys the machine and then dies.
Commentary
Karloff never got to do very much real acting in most of his films. Either he was covered in some kind of mask or makeup or he had some very simple scripts. In this one, he gets to make several really good dramatic speeches and show us that he actually can act.
It’s also interesting to see the perspective and outlook people had on heart transplants before they were a common reality. This wasn’t a historical drama like say, Frankenstein, that took place in the 1700s, this was a contemporary story with a bit of science fiction thrown in.