My Top Ten Execution Scenes

So how do you rank execution scenes from TV and Movies in any kind of order? Well, I've taken the easy way out and will list my ten favourites in no particular order. My criteria are simple - I must have seen it on TV or in the cinema, it has to involve a state sanctioned execution on the gallows or scaffold, it has to be realistic, and it has to have dramatic merit.

Hollywood, despite all the SFX has always been squeamish when it comes to women on the scaffold - something very evident in the high percentage of last minute rescues, reprieves and re-writes. For instance, there is not a single film version of that great literary classic - The Hunchback of Notre Dame - which follows the ending of the book - where Esmeralda, having been saved from the gallows once by Quasimodo, is eventually hanged.

Anyway, I digress. Here's my list, with a few comments added.

THE GALLOWS

Catherine "Cat" Ballou (Jane Fonda) - Cat Ballou (1965)

This one is a corker. Cat wears a white dress with low neckline. Her hair is tied back. We see her face framed by the noose as she is walking towards the gallows, and the viewpoint is maintained as she slowly ascends the steps. The gathered crowd is singing "Rock of Ages". Asked for a last request she tells the sheriff to "Get on with it". The correctly tied noose is put around her neck and the sheriff orders the hanging to proceed. She is saved when the (fake) padre cuts through the rope as the trap is sprung, and we see her drop through and caught by the hero in a waiting cart. Very dramatic and realistic, but symptomatic of Hollywood's obsession with the timely rescue!

Francesca Bruni (Sienna Miller) - Casanova (2005)

Francesca is sentenced to hang alongside Casanova (played by Heath Ledger) and they are both taken to a gallows erected just off Venice's St Mark's Square. She is in period dress with her hair tied up. There is an excellent shot of her having the noose tightened around her neck. The slack in the rope is drawn up as the hangman awaits the order to hoist his victims into the air. The rescue party arrives in the nick of time, pretending to be emmisarries of the Pope, and granting the fortunate pair a (fake) pardon before they all make a clean getaway.

Esmeralda (Lesley-Anne Down) - Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982)

I prefer this to the version with Salma Hayek, who plays a defiant Esmeralda, mainly because Lesley Anne Down's interpretation is more feminine and vulnerable. She is brought to the gallows in a tumbril, with a noose in place around her neck. This is removed when she reaches the gallows. We see her made to stand on a stool as the real noose is put around her neck. She sways slightly from side to side, looking like she is about to faint. There is a drum roll as the hangman prepares to draw away the stool... and then, quick as a flash, Quasimodo intervenes, retreating with her to the safety of Notre Dame, before reappearing on the balcony, holding Esmeralda aloft and claiming "Sanctuary!".

Shirley Bellinger (Kathryn Erbe) - TV Series "Oz - Works of Mercy" (2000)

This is an excellent interpretation of a modern, American style prison execution ("Oz" is slang for Ossining State Penitentiary in New York). The character was permitted to choose her method of execution and she chose the gallows over lethal injection. We see her enter the death chamber, hands bound in front of her, wearing a white prison dress with collar and white flat-soled plimsolls, accompanied by guards and a priest. She is positioned over the trap and begins to panic. She is restrained and eventually calmed by the guards, and seems to accept her fate. As the hood is put over her head and the noose tightened over it, she begins to whisper "Sweet Jesus be with me now" over and over again. The warden signals the executioner who springs the trap. We see her fall through the trapdoor from the perspective of the witnesses, jerking suddenly as she hits the end of the noose before the camera cuts away. Extremely well done and in many ways, terrifying.

Victoria Winters (Joanna Going) - Dark Shadows Mini-series (1991)

In a sham trial, where the key participants are influenced by the true witch, Angelique (played with delightful malevolence by Lysette Anthony), Victoria Winters is sentenced to hang as a witch. In the execution scene, we see her led to the gallows and, reminiscent of the same imagery in Cat Ballou, there are several shots where she is looking up at the waiting noose and we see her head and neck framed within it. An onlooker attempts a rescue but is shot for his troubles. Victoria is quickly noosed and hooded, the trapdoor sprung and we see a shot from below as she drops through it.

Kate Muldoon (Linda Evans) - The Gambler II (1983)

This is the very first one I remember watching on the telly. It's a pretty good hanging scene, but you always knew she was going to be rescued. Kate Muldoon is led to the traditional wooden Wild West style gallows in a long white, high necked dress (I never understood that, surely she should have been hanged in her saloon girl outfit!). The noose is put around her neck, but our heroes intercede and rescue just as the lever is about to be pulled (one of the male leads, Bruce Boxleitner I think, throws a knife at the wood next to the lever, stopping it from being pulled).

THE BLOCK & GUILLOTINE

Madamoiselle Renard (Diane Morrison) - Quills (2000)

This is possibly the most erotic imagery of a guillotine execution I have seen in a mainstream film. It starts with heavy breathing suggesting a sexual setting, with narrative that does not give the viewer much warning of what is coming. When we are introduced to Madamoiselle Renard, we see her in a pose that looks much like ecstasy. When the camera pulls out, we see the executionaer caressing her neck as he shoves her head into the lunette. Blood drips from the sacending blade on to her cheek, and then she stares sown at the heads of the victims before her. The blade is released and the screen goes dark.

Catherine Howard (Emily Blunt) - Henry VIII (2005)

There are two vividly depicted female executions in this TV mini-series (as is to be expected in a Henry VIII film). The first one, of Anne Boleyn (played by Helena Bonham Carter, who has previously lost her head as Lady Jane Grey) is also a corker, but for drama, Emily Blunt's weepy performace as the doomed Katherine Howard edges it for me (no pun intended). She is led to the block, doing her best to be brave, just about loses it in her last words, and then, blindfolded, she has to be pushed on to the block, only accepting her fate in the final moments as she grips the block, waiting for the axe to fall. We see the axe raised and brought down with a thud and wet sounding squelch as the film cuts to ... Henry out on a hunt - a cannon booms in the background to signal his Queen's execution.

Lady Panthea Vyne (Lysette Anthony) - The Lady and the Highwayman (1989)

A historical romantic romp with a fey looking Hugh Grant as the hero and Lysette Anthony as his love interest. Lady Panthea is sentenced to death for treason as her hero languishes in Newgate waiting for the gallows. The hero escapes and sets off to rescue his Lady. We see Lady Panthea's hair tied up beneath a white bonnet, exposing her delicate white neck. Wearing a white, low necked dress, she is led to the scaffold by an entourage of guards and priest, and pays her executioner. Composing herself, she kneels down and placed her chin the the scoop of the block, stretching her neck and waiting for the axe to fall. We see the axe come down and embed itself into the wood next to her head as the headsman keels over with a knife in his back. Her rescuers have, of course, arrived just in the nick of time.