Hard drive at 100% - now I can't boot.

I have done something stupid.
Forgetting that my internal hard drive was nearly full, I was moving some iMovie footage from an external drive when I accidentally filled my iMacs drive.
The Finder window said 0kb free, and then my aging old iMac (April 09) decided to lock up and freeze.
I hard power cycled using the button on the back for about 5sec, but now it wont boot past the apple logo.
Is there a way to emergency boot to move off enough data so I can boot properly and back everything that hasnt been backed up before I retire this old workhorse?

Try to boot your Mac in Safe Mode by Pressing and Holding the Shift key while Booting and see if your Mac turn's ON and once you are Logged in to your User Account try to Backup as much Data as you can on your External Hard Drive and then free up some space on the Internal Hard Drive (keep atleast 20% free space for a Good Performance) and after removing the unwanted Data from the Internal HD on your Mac Restart your Mac and see if it boots in Normal Mode.

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