MovieChat Forums > Let Him Have It Discussion > Didnt waste time

Didnt waste time

posted 15 years ago by jbe14
9 replies | jump to latest

I was well impressed with this film but was shocked by how quick the hanging took place. From the moment when the guard knocked and opened the door to the actual hanging cant have been more than 30 seconds. Phew!!!

[–] dirt-box 15 years ago

This was the norm, to save on the stress to the condemned, a lot more humane than other places where condemned prisoners are led through long prison corridors in shackles. Albert Pierrepoint's record was 7 seconds from entering the cell to pulling the lever.

WTF did you expect to find here?

[–] 15 years ago

[deleted]

[–] JekyllBoote-1 15 years ago

That's how long the actual hanging takes, but death is unlikely to be instantaneous, in spite of the official propaganda put out by the Home Office.

Brain death will not be immediate; furthermore, the heart is likely to continue beating for 15-20 minutes. From a physiological point of view, hanging is essentially the same as decapitation (which does indeed occur if the hangman gives an excessively long drop). The guillotine is probably even faster than the gallows, but, once again, it is well known that death is not instantaneous, nor is loss of consciousness immediate.

It was the custom to leave the body hanging for at least an hour. This is not a humane way to be killed.

[–] PhantomHelmsman 15 years ago

Couple of things:

There was never any "official propaganda put out by the Home Office". The Government's position was always one of silence in the public eye, and the method of execution was never discussed. Bits of information were leaked from sources, but there were never official descriptions or statements.

Bodies were only left hanging for an hour until the end of the 1940s/early 1950s. From then on, they were taken down as soon as the MO had okayed the corpse.

[–] neilsaunders1960 14 years ago

I suspect that JekyllBoote has in mind the official statement issued from any British prison where an execution had occurred (with its wording prescribed by the Home Office) that - irrespective of what had actually happened (such as, e.g. strangulation or decapitation), just so long as the condemned person was dead - the execution "passed off expeditiously and without a hitch".

Sounds quite a lot like "propaganda" to me!

[–] nick suess 14 years ago

Sorry, but I disagree totally. It was a VERY humane method of execution, as also was the guillotine. Loss of consciousness is very swift in either case. Were I condemned to death I'd opt for guillotine as first choice, and long drop hanging second. The extremely cruel and inhumane method of lethal injection would be well down my list.

[–] EJF 14 years ago

Actually, this was somewhat exaggerated for shock effect in the film.

The hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, wrote an account of Bentley's handing which was published in The Guardian the morning after Bentley's conviction was overturned in 1998. Here's a link:

http://derekbentley.com/pierrepoint/wnJUL98.html

[–] murph24 14 years ago

Still, there's nothing in Pierrepoint's account that contradicts either the dramatization of Bentley's hanging in Let Him Have It or his own reputation as Britain's fastest and most efficient executioner. As far as Pierrepoint was concerned, his brisk and no-nonsense manner was a mercy to the condemned.

(The only thing that surprised me about Pierrepoint's recollection was his claim that Christopher Craig was fourteen at the time of the crime, when he was actually sixteen. However, this may be the fault of the publication that printed his account.)

From Maurice Newman's review of The Life And Times Of Albert Pierrepoint by Leonora Klein -

Albert liked to boast that he did the job more quickly than anyone else, calculating the time from his entrance to the chamber to pulling the lever at under 12 seconds. He prided himself on his speed and efficiency, managing to get the job done before the person had time to fully comprehend that the final moment had come.

One witness spoke of being present at an execution where Albert lit a cigar and puffed a few times before putting it on a window sill as he went in to perform a hanging. When he returned and picked up the cigar again, it was still alight. It was a trick he performed many times.

[–] Elder_Yautija 12 years ago

That's probably to further enforce the point of how quickly after the sentence the hanging took place. About a month. Phew!!