39,327
edits
Last-Minute Reprieve: Difference between revisions
update links
m (clean up) |
(update links) |
||
Line 26:
* Parodied in ''[[Top Secret]]'', where the Germans decide not to execute Val Kilmer's character at the last minute. Cut to the firing squad who's getting ready to aim and fire while the phone rings, and an old lady with a walker slowly inches her way towards it.
* Done at the end of the [[Bob Hope]] vehicle ''[[My Favorite Brunette]]'', much to the disgust of the prison guard assigned to throw the switch on the electric chair. ([[Bing Crosby]] in [[One-Scene Wonder|a cameo]].)
* Done in [[Big Damn Heroes]] style in ''The Player''. One movie within the movie is an art film in which the heroine dies in the gas chamber at the end, even though innocent. By the end of the main movie, the director of the art film has become so corrupted by Hollywood that his little art film with a downer ending now has [[Bruce Willis]] rescuing [[Susan Sarandon]] from the gas chamber complete with snappy one liners.
== Folklore ==
Line 36:
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* Subverted in the Cycling Tour sketch from episode 34 of ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]''. Mr. Pither is about to be executed by a Soviet firing squad. An officer is shown running toward the execution site yelling "Nyet!" (No!). He hands a paper to the firing squad officer.
{{quote|'''FS Officer:''' A telegram? From the Kremlin! The Central Committee! It says..."Carry on with the execution".}}
* Also subverted in ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' TOS episode "Shadowplay". Henry Ritchie is about to be executed in the electric chair. Prosecutor Adam Grant has been convinced that Ritchie may be not guilty by reason of insanity and convinces the state governor to postpone the execution. The governor calls the execution chamber, but he's too late - Ritchie has already been killed.
Line 42:
** This example may be the latest possible reprieve, given that the firing squad corporal gets as far as "Ready, aim, f-".
* Subverted in ''[[The West Wing]]'', which looks at the issue from the point of view of the man granting the reprieve; after wrestling with the issue of whether to grant a Death Row triple-murderer a stay of execution for a weekend, and initially deciding not to, Bartlet eventually realises that he should—unfortunately, he realises this too late, and the man is executed.
* In the live action ''[[The Flash (TV
* Parodied in a ''[[Rutland Weekend Television]]'' sketch. Just before the condemned man is about to be executed a telegram arrives which reads "The execution is candelled" (sic). The prisoner insists that this must be a typo for "cancelled", but his jailors argue that it might mean the Governor wants the execution carried out by candlelight.
* An episode of the short-lived D. B. Sweeney series ''Strange Luck'' featured a mad gubernatorial dash to the prison to rescue a man about to be executed for a murder he did not commit, with the hero and the real murderer (who had confessed after years of a guilty conscience), following along behind. During the rush to the prison (the phones were out... it was raining heavily), the brakes on the hero's car give out and he slams into a power pole, snapping a high-tension power line. When the power line breaks, it simultaneously a) cuts power to the entire prison just as the switches are flipped to fry the innocent man and b) [[Karmic Death|clips the real murderer, electrocuting him]].
Line 50:
* [[CSI]] did it in "The Execution of Catherine Willows", only to have the guy done in at the end anyway.
* [[Bones]] had an episode of it as well, played straight, even though the guy actually *was* a killer. More bodies were found and his execution had to be called off while they were examined.
* During a late point of the 1840 time line of ''[[Dark Shadows (TV series)|Dark Shadows]]'', Quentin Collins I and his cousin Desmond were about to be executed on charges of witchcraft, in fact Quentin's head was on the block, when Valerie Collins {{spoiler|(really the extremely long-lived witch Angelique)}}, the wife of "cousin from England" Barnabas Collins {{spoiler|(really a time-traveling immortal vampire)}}, arrived to stop the execution by producing a box containing {{spoiler|the head of warlock Judah Zachary, who had been her master almost 200 years earlier and whose spirit was possessing Quentin's friend and main accuser, Gerard Stiles, in order to see Quentin killed so that he could gain control of the Collins fortune}}.
== Music ==
Line 56:
== [[Real Life]] ==
* During the [[American Revolution]], General [[George Washington]] handled low morale and rampant insubordination during a harsh winter (worse than Valley Forge, even) by sentencing eight men to be hanged for various charges. As the eight men had the nooses placed around their necks, staring into the already-dug graves, with the coffins ready and everything, a soldier suddenly stepped forward and pleaded for a reprieve. Seven of the eight were let go.
* Likewise, the Swedish king Gustavus III had sentenced all the participants of Anjala Conspiracy to death by beheading. As those fifty men stood at the scaffold and executioner had honed his sword, a messenger suddenly announced that all but two conspirators had been pardoned. One, Johan Hästesko, was beheaded - he had personally insulted the King - and another, Göran Sprengtporten, was banished from the realm - he had been an officer in the Russian army.
Line 77:
[[Category:Index to The Rescue]]
[[Category:Crime and Punishment Tropes]]
[[Category:
| |||