The Man They Could Not Hang is a 1939 American horror film directed by Nick Grinde from a screenplay by Karl Brown. It stars Boris Karloff as Dr. Henryk Savaard, a scientist who develops a procedure for bringing the dead back to life. When he is arrested and sentenced to be executed for murdering a young medical student who volunteered to be killed to test the procedure, Savaard vows retribution on the individuals responsible. Alongside Karloff, the film's cast includes Lorna Gray, Robert Wilcox, and Roger Pryor. The Man They Could Not Hang is the first in a series of four similarly-themed but otherwise unrelated horror films produced by Columbia Pictures, all starring Karloff, informally known as the "Mad Doctor Cycle." It was followed by The Man with Nine Lives, Before I Hang (both 1940), and The Devil Commands (1941). A fifth, The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942), was a parody of the others. Plot Dr. Henryk Savaard is a scientist experimenting with bringing the dead back to life in a laboratory in his home. Bob Roberts, a young medical student, volunteers himself to be temporarily killed in order to test an artificial heart developed by Savaard. If successful, Savaard's invention could allow doctors to perform procedures that would otherwise be impossible to conduct on living patients. Bob's fiancée, Ms. Crawford, fears that the experiment will fail, and rushes to a police department to alert law enforcement. When the police enter Savaard's house, Savaard instructs his assistant, Lang, to take the artificial heart and hide. Despite his assertions that he can restore Bob's life, the police arrest Savaard for murder. After a publicized trial, a jury declares Savaard guilty of first-degree murder, and he is sentenced to hang. Following the announcement of the verdict, the presiding Judge Bowman allows Savaard two minutes to speak, which Savaard uses to condemn those responsible for his conviction. On death row, Savaard is visited by Lang, and signs a release form that will allow Lang to take possession of his body after he is executed. Shortly thereafter, Savaard is hanged. Some time later, Savaard is revived by Lang. Though he sustained a broken neck from the hanging, Lang was able to surgically repair it, an effort that Lang notes would have been unfeasible had Savaard been alive. Over the month following Savaard's execution, six of the jurors from his trial are found hanged