History Main / TheManTheyCouldntHang

* In the 1974 Italian movie ''Film/LastDaysOfMussolini'', the Italian dictator has been captured by the partisans who are lynching fascists. A female partisan guarding Mussolini wordlessly pulls down her scarf to [[NotSoDifferentRemark reveal a hanging scar]].

* In the 1974 Italian movie ''Film/LastDaysOfMussolini'', the Italian dictator has been captured by the partisans who are lynching fascists. A female partisan guarding Mussolini wordlessly pulls down her scarf to [[NotSoDifferent reveal a hanging scar]].

* An ''Series/{{Angel}}'' flashback episode dealt with Angel attempting to get rid of a demon in the Hyperion (the hotel he now owns) that manipulates people's emotions causing them to kill each other. Unfortunately, the angry hotel guests target him and hang him from the chandelier. Vampires cannot die this way, and Angel plays dead. After they leave the lobby, he cuts himself down and gives a big fuck you to the guests, telling the demon he can have them.

* In one of the war novels by Creator/SvenHassel, [[UnreliableNarrator Porta]] tells the story of a sailor who can't be hanged because he virtually has no neck. In the end the hangman goes insane with frustration and demonstrates that his rope works perfectly on himself. The authorities decide to kill the condemned by other means, but fortunately he escapes.

* ''Film/TheBalladOfBusterScruggs''. Played with in "Near Algodones" where TheNameless cowboy escapes being hung for one crime, only to be hung for a crime committed by the man who rescued him.

* Sindy Gallows of ''Videogame/{{Lisa}}: The Joyful'' is initially found hung and beaten by his enemies. After killing them, just as Buddy is about to walk away, he wakes up and tells you:

* The unnamed prisoner in ''Webcomic/PennyArcade'''s multi-part strip "Sand". In addition to [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/10/27 not being killed by hanging]], he also proves invulnerable to [[http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/07/17 fire ("feller don't burn right"), and bullets]].

* Also the eighteenth-century [[http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/edinburgh/pubguide/maggiedicksons.html Margaret Dickson]], who was pardoned and ever after known as "Half-Hangit Maggie".

* The {{trope namer|s}} is an example from Britain, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Babbacombe_Lee John "Babbacome" Lee]]. He was sentenced to hang for allegedly murdering his old employer in 1885. He is quoted as having said God would not allow him to be hanged; his words were to prove prophetic. All three times they tried to hang him, the trapdoor mechanism would inexplicably jam, even though it worked perfectly when he wasn't standing over it. Why this happened is anyone's guess. Given a life sentence instead, he was eventually released in 1907, when the Home Secretary was persuaded that the "evidence" against him was circumstantial and all-around rather shoddy.

[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin A character who has survived a hanging.]] They will frequently sport a scarred or deformed neck as a result. This may just indicate that he is a [[{{Determinator}} real hard case]] and [[RasputinianDeath too tough to kill easily]], or it may be used to show what a [[MysteriousPast bad life he has led]] and to explain his hatred of the world. A BungledSuicide may also be involved.

* PlayedForLaughs (and a healthy dose of BreakingTheFourthWall) with Ralph Filthy in one episode of ''Series/FilthyRichAndCatflap''.

%%* ''Series/ForeverKnight'' had this happen with Nick once, though being a vampire, he lived.
%%* ''Series/{{Highlander}}'' ditto with one or two immortals...'Leader of The Pack' for one ep.
* Part of Bob Rebadow's backstory in ''Series/{{Oz}}''. He was originally sent to Oswald State Penitentiary in the 1960's to be executed in the electric chair for murder, but the Great Northeast Blackout of 1965 coincidentally caused a power surge right at the moment when his executioner threw the switch, and he survived. Even ''more'' luckily, the death penalty was abolished in New York State while he was in Oz's medical unit recovering from injuries sustained during the botched execution.
* In ''Series/{{Moonlight}}'' it's shown that the French Revolutionaries figured out the aristocracy were vampires when they tried hanging one, and failed. Hence the guillotine and the fire (instead of burning, it ashes vampires).

* ''Series/AgentCarter'': When it looks like Peggy and Jarvis are going to be tried and found guilty of treason Peggy implies she survived a hanging once, [[NoodleIncident but provides no further context]].
-->'''Peggy:''' Have you ever been hanged, Mr. Jarvis?\\
'''Jarvis:''' [[DeadpanSnarker I can't say that I have, no.]]\\
'''Peggy:''' It is quite unpleasant!
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia''. After [[TheTeamBenefactor Frank]] loses all his money in a ponzi scheme, he tries to hang himself in the bar. The only problem is, because his neck is too thick, he only hangs there without so much as choking. According to Dee, he'd already been hanging for a while and could probably keep going for hours.
* ''Series/Charmed1998'' had the sisters go back in time to the Salem Witch Trials, where they're quickly identified as witches and hanged. Fortunately for them, one of the witch hunters was an ally and managed to secure the ropes in a way that acted as a safety harness, so they just had to play dead and wait until the others had left.

* Celtic rock band [[Music/TheMenTheyCouldntHang The Men They Couldn't Hang]] take their name from this trope, with the added bonus of sounding very anti-establishment.
* Referenced in the lyrics of The Tragically Hip's song ''Bobcaygeon'':
-->''That night in Toronto with its checkerboard floors\\
Riding on horseback and keeping order restored\\
Till the men they couldn't hang\\
Stepped to the mike and sang\\
And their voices rang with that Aryan twang''

* ''Radio/BleakExpectations'': Harry Biscuit survives being hanged, by dint of being incredibly overweight. He would have died, but since the judge who ordered the hanging was watching, and eating some cheese, and Harry manages to gain weight just by ''looking'' at cheese...

* In ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay'', Franky the Pitchfork is DrivenToSuicide by his heckling companions, the paint pot and the paintbrush, after failing to kick Conker's ass. When he decides to hang himself, he fails because he "does not appear to have a neck of any description", and remains stuck hanging from the barnyard ceiling until Conker cuts him down.
* Mr. Black's assistant Mr. Lynch in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRevolver'' survived being hanged. It shows, as he has a hard time keeping his neck straight during his pre-duel scene.
* According to the sparse back-story for ''[[VideoGame/QuakeIIIArena Quake III]]'' character Cadaver "is a brutal murderer who couldn’t be executed, The electric chair, gallows, and gas chamber only made him meaner"
* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/RedNinjaEndOfHonor'', Kurenai, is hanged by her neck using ''iron wire'' with her hands tied behind her back, but her small stature combined with watching her father getting killed right in front of her gives her enough HeroicWillpower to survive.
* Silas Greaves from ''VideoGame/CallOfJuarezGunslinger'' is eventually revealed to be after the three outlaws who tried hanging him and his two older brothers. Since they hanged them on the same tree branch simultaneously, the branch broke off under their combined weight, so Silas survived--but his brothers didn't.

* Overlaps with BungledSuicide in the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Mom's the Word": Stewie tries to hang himself, but can't due to his lack of a neck and the football shape of his head.
* In the pilot of ''WesternAnimation/{{Disenchantment}}'', Elfo's village chief attempts to hang him for sleeping with his daughter, but it turns out he doesn't have the body weight for it to be fatal. Apparently, the last elf they tried hanging died of old age.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', Scarecrow evokes this with his ''New Batman Adventures'' design, wearing a severed noose around his neck to imply he cannot be killed and to instill fear into his victims. It's even left ambiguous whether or not he truly is undead now and even [[WordOfGod Bruce Timm]] stated in an interview the writers weren't even sure if he was still human or not, with this design proving popular enough to carry over to his designs in ''Film/BatmanBegins'' and ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum''.

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1452266899092104700
%% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread.

* In ''Anime/CrossAnge'', when Ange is sentenced to a hanging, because they want her to suffer, they drop her from a height short enough that her neck doesn't break, and watch her choke. She survives long enough for Tusk to rescue her.
* ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable'' has Angelo, who was to be [[SerialKiller hanged for his crimes]] survived the punishment, most likely due to his recently awakened Stand.

* Lady Deathstrike was hanged from a telephone wire by Nazi soldiers during the Spanish Civil War in a TimeTravel related ''Comicbook/{{Wolverine}}'' storyline. Rather than dying, as one might expect, she flexed her neck to massive proportions, bursting the wires, and proceeded to kill the soldiers' tank...
* ''ComicBook/NemesisTheWarlock'' once crashed on Earth and a group of alien-hating villagers decided the best way to kill him was by hanging. Three days passed before they realized he was still alive, [[spoiler: after every person who wronged him met KarmicDeath]].

* Played for laughs in a ''ComicBook/{{Sturmtruppen}}'' strip featuring a man too tall to be hanged by normal means, much to the soldiers' dismay.

* In ''ComicBook/DeathOfTheFamily'', [[spoiler: when Harley Quinn tries to point out to Joker that a girl always has a secret or two, he gets a noose made of chains around her neck and starts pulling, saying that she should "hang" around and tell him a few secrets. She survives this]].
* Played with in ''ComicBook/AstroCity''. The supernatural hero the Hanged Man is a spectre with a burlap sack on his head and the remnants of a hangman's noose around his neck, and is implied to be the victim of a hanging several centuries ago. Whether or not he currently counts as alive is another matter. [[spoiler:It turns out the implication's at least partially true - while the Hanged Man's true nature remains a mystery, he needs a willing host to serve as his physical body, and seeks out a new host if his current body's destroyed. On at least one occasion, his host was a criminal being hanged who accepted the Hanged Man's offer of redemption.]]
* Judge Roy Bean in the ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'' comic "Le Juge". He survived because his would-be executioners used a faulty rope he himself sold them. It did however leave him with a chronic neck injury that prevents him from turning his head.
* ''ComicBook/{{Ironwood}}'' opens with Dave Dragavon hanging upside down from a tree with a rock tied around his neck. He has been like this for three days. Upon being released, he treats the whole incident as no more than a minor inconvenience (aside from [[RipVanTinkle a burning need to pee]]).

* Ygor from ''Film/SonOfFrankenstein'' and ''Film/TheGhostOfFrankenstein'', the character who gave his name to TheIgor, was hanged for his part in [[GraveRobbing providing bodies for Dr. Frankenstein]]. He received his trademark broken neck in the process and was pronounced dead from the ordeal, but didn't actually die. This doesn't stop him from saying he had died.

* Lord Blackwood in ''Film/SherlockHolmes2009'' lives through hanging [[spoiler: the first time]]. [[spoiler: Though it turns out that he didn't survive through any sort of toughness or special powers, but because his execution was staged; a hook hidden in the noose and a torso rig diverted the weight of his body away from his neck and onto the torso brace. A few feigned twitches and a drug-induced death-like coma completed the illusion]].
* ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'':
** He doesn't have a scar, but Captain Jack Sparrow fits this trope by the end of ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanTheCurseOfTheBlackPearl''. Will throws his sword into the scaffolding just as the hangman pulls the lever, and Jack lands on it perfectly, balancing there until the rope is cut.
** Carina Smyth also survives a hanging early in ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMenTellNoTales''. Henry catches her out of the air below the gallows and holds her high enough that the rope doesn't pull taut, having to stay there until his allies defeat the British soldiers and remove the noose.
* In ''Film/TheImaginariumOfDoctorParnassus'', it's revealed that [[spoiler:Tony has been hanged several times, most likely for the various crimes he's committed (including dealings with the mob and selling children's organs on the black market). He survives through a trick in which he swallows a small metal flute, which prevents his throat from being crushed. He ultimately dies when Parnassus swaps the flute with a fake, breakable one.]]

* Creator/BorisKarloff starred as Dr. Henryk Savaard, who is executed but brought back to life in a 1939 Creator/ColumbiaPictures thriller titled (you guessed it), ''The Man They Could Not Hang.'' Although in this movie, [[spoiler: he really does die, and is brought back to life with science... he had it all planned out ahead of time though.]]
* Freddie attempts to dispose of Michael Myers by hanging him in ''Film/HalloweenResurrection''. Needless to say, it doesn't work. Michael acts as though being ''thrown out of a window'' and hanged was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
* Taken UpToEleven in ''Film/TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly'', where the {{Bandito}} Tuco survives being hanged at least three times thanks to Blondie's [[ImprobableAimingSkills ability]] to ShootTheRope.
* ''Franchise/FridayThe13th'':
** After the FinalGirl Chris manages to knock Jason out in ''Film/FridayThe13thPartIII'', she tries to kill him by putting a noose around his neck and dropping him from the barn's second floor. This doesn't work, and she has to give him the axe.
** In ''Film/JasonX'', it is mentioned how officials tried to execute Jason multiple times, which includes a hanging, before settling for cryogenic imprisonment.
* In ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII'', Marty [=McFly=] survives Buford Tannen and his gang attempting to hang him because Doc Brown shoots out the rope. Like Creator/BrendanFraser mentioned above, Creator/MichaelJFox really got hanged during one take when his hand slipped, before resuscitated by a crewmember.
* In Cary Grant vehicle ''People Will Talk'' this is Mr. Shunderson's backstory. Dr. Praetorius saved his life, after he had been successfully hanged and slabbed. In a horror movie this would have implications, but this is a comedy... still, Mr. Shunderson does come off as fairly unearthly.
* In ''Film/{{Excalibur}}'', Morgana, Mordred, and their minions capture Sir Percival and hang him from a tree where several other knights have already been hanged. Percival hangs from the tree for several hours in agony until his rope is accidentally cut by a hanged knight's spurs.

* In ''Film/MacheteKills'', Machete gets hanged by a racist sheriff near the beginning. To the sheriff's amazement, other than being unable to free himself, Machete is unaffected. Machete gives him a DeathGlare until he is released.
* Attempted by Yankee Jim in ''Film/TheHauntingOfWhaleyHouse'', as he did in real life. However, his method of doing so just guaranteed a slow death by strangulation instead of a quick one by his neck breaking.
* At the very end of ''Film/TheMagnificentSeven2016'' it is revealed that [[spoiler:Chisolm has a scar around the base of his neck from where a group of Confederate renegades tried to hang him on Bogue's orders, back in Kansas.]]
* Played ''completely'' [[PlayedForLaughs for laughs]] in ''The Ridiculous Six'', a parody of the above film. To provide a distraction, Li’l Pete intentionally rallies up an angry mob. When they release the weights to hang him, he begins sputtering and choking... only to immediately start laughing and say he’s fine, he was just joking. After a few swinging-back-and-forth tricks, the crowd begins to get upset that they aren’t seeing an execution, and draw guns on him. Immediately, the rope is cut by a thrown knife by the gang, and they drag him behind a speeding carriage ''by his noose...'' and he’s ''still fine.'' Apparently, while growing up on the farm it was his job to pull the plow with his own throat, so he “always had a strong neck”.
* In ''Film/TheHandsOfOrlac'', Vasseur claims to have survived being guillotined, and has the scar on his neck to prove it. [[spoiler:It's fake.]]
* In the 1974 Italian movie ''Last Days of Mussolini'', the Italian dictator has been captured by the partisans who are lynching fascists. A female partisan guarding Mussolini wordlessly pulls down her scarf to [[NotSoDifferent reveal a hanging scar]].
* In ''Film/{{Gunless}}'', The Montana Kid survived a hanging by Cutter's {{Bounty Hunter}}s when the branch they tried to hang him from snapped.

[[caption-width-right:267:[[Music/TheTragicallyHip Aryan twang optional]].]]

[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin A character who has survived a hanging]]. They will frequently sport a scarred or deformed neck as a result. This may just indicate that he is a [[{{Determinator}} real hard case]] and [[RasputinianDeath too tough to kill easily]], or it may be used to show what a [[MysteriousPast bad life he has led]] and to explain his hatred of the world. A BungledSuicide may also be involved.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

[[quoteright:267:[[Webcomic/{{Oglaf}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fullthrottle.png]]]]

* A mob tried to hang Nick in a ''Series/ForeverKnight'' flashback. Since he’s a vampire, it’s not particularly effective.

** Devil Rebirth. He had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment because Villainy Prison didn't have anything, including rope, capable of killing him. He later meets [[YouAreAlreadyDead Death By Kenshiro]], but survives just long enough to take Jackal, the scumbag who lied to him to get him to fight Kenshiro, with him.

* In the game ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay'', Franky the Pitchfork is DrivenToSuicide by his heckling companions the paint pot and the paint brush after failing to kick Conker's ass. When he decides to hang himself, he fails because he "does not appear to have a neck of any description", and remains stuck hanging from the barnyard ceiling until Conker cuts him down.
* Mr. Black's assistant Mr. Lynch in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRevolver'' survived being hanged. It shows, as he has hard time keeping his neck straight during his pre-duel scene.
* According to the sparse back-story for [[VideoGame/QuakeIIIArena Quake 3]] character Cadaver "is a brutal murderer who couldn’t be executed, The electric chair, gallows, and gas chamber only made him meaner"

* ''Series/ForeverKnight'' had this happen with Nick once, though being a vampire, he lived.
* ''Series/{{Highlander}}'' ditto with one or two immortals...'Leader of The Pack' for one ep.

* The killer in the ''Series/KungFu'' episode, mentioned above.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': [[spoiler:Kaido]]. They tried hanging him; the rope just broke. They tried again with ''chains''; they also broke. They tried to guillotine him; that ''also'' broke as soon as it hit his neck. He's survived 40 execution attempts so far, simply because he's that indestructible. It's reached the point he attempts suicide ''for fun'' (and also [[DeathSeeker to figure out if anything can so much as scratch him]]).

** In ''Discworld/TheLastContinent'', the Real Life concept of a sentence being reduced if a hanging is failed is parodied. If the gallows malfunctions in a Fourecksian execution, they let the prisoner go back inside so he doesn't have to stand around in the sun while they fix it. If it takes long enough, they'll even give the prisoner lunch while he's waiting.

* In the 1974 Italian movie ''Last Days of Mussolini'', Mussolini has been captured by the partisans who are lynching fascists. A female partisan guarding Mussolini wordlessly pulls down her scarf to [[NotSoDifferent reveal a hanging scar]].