Waste of time

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I just happened to watch this film back to back (or is it hand to hand?) with Peter Lorre's earlier classic "Mad Love" from 1935. Both feature severed hands contributing to the madness of the principal player, though in the case of this picture, there is more of a psychological angle at work in explaining the psychosis of Lorre's character Hilary Cummins. For even though Hilary can 'see' the disembodied hand at work and even attempts to subdue it, the real confrontation takes place only in his own mind.The story is built around the greed of family members who expect the reading of a will to go their way following the death of wealthy, wheelchair bound pianist (Victor Francen) with only one good hand. When the will provides only for the frustrated pianist's nurse (Andrea King) as sole heir, it sets in motion a devious plot by the dead man's brother-in-law and his son to have the will vacated and replaced with an earlier one in which they stood to inherit the bulk of the Ingram estate.The picture borrows from mystery plots of the era by introducing a secret lever in a bookcase revealing a hidden safe, as the disembodied hand seemingly makes a victim of the younger Arlington (John Alvin) heir. Had the idea not been used a thousand times before, the filmmakers might have used the old lights out trick along the way to promote further mayhem.With an understated but effective performance in the early going, Peter Lorre builds upon his character to deliver an elegantly crazed conclusion to the story as he tries locking the rampant hand away in a desk, and unsuccessful at that, actually tries nailing it in place! Considering the era, the crawling hand effect is particularly notable. Had I seen this as a kid it would have impacted me on the same level as "House on Haunted Hill", which is to say it creeped me out for some time.As I mentioned earlier, this was the second of two films I caught the other day on Turner Classics featuring Peter Lorre in stories about disembodied hands. The theme for the evening was 'rogue body parts', something I might not have considered left to my own imagination. Given the subject matter, I'd have to say that both flicks amounted to the best use of my time, hands down.

Here's another Odd One. Starting with the Studio. In the Forties WB was certainly Not Known for Horror Movies and taking this on is somewhat of a Puzzle. After all, the Post War Years saw a more Mature Audience and the Horror Genre had seen its Better Days. "Abbot and Costello Meets Frankenstein" (1948) was to come shortly.Then there's that Goofy Title. It Conjures up all Kinds of Things that were Not to Be. It's just Clunky. The Premise and Execution were Ripe for Laughter and it is a Wonder the Movie Worked at all. But it did.Thanks mostly to Peter Lorre and Director Robert Florey's Atmospherics with some Help from Max Steiner's Score. The SFX are Unbelievably Believable. Folks who saw this one as Youngsters usually Say it Scared Them Under the Covers. The Tone is Ominous and Played Melodramatically Straight (until the last five minutes).There are Chills and Thrills if You get into it and the Film has a Gothic Creepiness. The Hand Shows some Gore and Manages to be Horrific at Times. Overall, Worth a Watch. May be a Bit Overrated but it is an Anomalous Film from the Studio in that Era. Different Enough to be sure and Stands Apart from its Contemporaries, what Few there were.

Anything Peter Lorre did I get on board for so when I had a chance to see this one...I jumped.A partially paralyzed concert pianist sits in his Italian castle all day and plays morose piano tunes whilst his nurse and weird astronomer friend sit idly by. He's a really creepy guy who's a bit off kilter but decides he's of enough sound mind to get his house mates and his 1 outside friend to sign off on his will. The nurse is emotionally exhausted having to take care of this guy so she decides to leave the house. Before this can happen the Pianist falls down the staircase and dies. After this comes the "whodunnit" part of the film and with this....it's where the real creepiness starts.Right off when you start this you'll recognize that this isn't a first rate production. By the actors alone you can see this but with the story they weave it really enhances the atmosphere that it's not on "A" list horror film. The real standout is Peter Lorre. He's heads and tails above any actor in this...and it shows. This guy made a real niche for himself playing these weird off-center type of guys. It was his looks, demeanor and personality all rolled into one that him the legend he is.Sit back on a dark night and watch this creepy little gem from the Warner lot. It's a "B" winner from any day and time.

This proved to be Warners' sole foray into the horror genre during the 1940s after a handful of variable efforts made in the previous decade (the John Barrymore vehicles SVENGALI and THE MAD GENIUS {both 1931}, the two-strip Technicolor showcases DOCTOR X {1932} and MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM {1933}, both featuring stalwarts Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, and the black-and-white sequel THE RETURN OF DR. X {1939}, with an ill-at-ease Humphrey Bogart).Though third-billed after romantic leads Robert Alda and Andrea King, Peter Lorre was obviously the star here – his own third stab at the popular form, following MAD LOVE (1935; produced by MGM) and THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK (1941; a Columbia picture also directed by Florey), and to which he would briefly return towards the end of his career at AIP. Lorre, in fact, was a staple of Warner's typical noir-ish style of the era (in which THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS itself is shot) – beginning with the classic THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) and continuing in his other films with either Humphrey Bogart or Sydney Greenstreet; actually, this was his only solo vehicle at that studio and, like the actor's earlier afore-mentioned genre turns, he not only carries it with aplomb but delivers a memorable performance.While the film is ideal Halloween fare (I watched a number of horror-related stuff throughout October in conjunction with my ongoing Luis Bunuel retrospective), it also forms part of that tribute to the Spanish Surrealist master because he claimed to have supplied Warners – while employed there during his American exile – with an idea for a motion picture about a rampaging disembodied hand, which they rejected at the time but eventually found itself on the screen anyway (though the story was attributed to somebody else)!; that said, he would have his revenge by 'appropriating' the device for himself – using it within a surreal context – for one of his major works i.e. THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962), with the result being clearly much superior to its 'inspiration'! For the record, other 'appearances' of the titular 'monster' are to be found in: THE WITCH'S MIRROR (1960), a cult item emanating from Mexico; the low-budgeter THE CRAWLING HAND (1963); the Amicus horror compendium DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965); the 1960s TV series and 1990s film versions of THE ADDAMS FAMILY; the Oliver Stone-Michael Caine dud THE HAND (1981); and, most recently, TRICK 'R TREAT (2007; which I have just watched).To get back to the subject at hand (no pun intended), the phoney European setting of THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS seems to have been influenced by that seen in the second phase of Universal horrors; even so, a good deal of the action takes place inside a sprawling villa – which, ironically, not only looks back to the 'animated' mansion from the French Poe adaptation THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (1928; on which Bunuel himself had served as Assistant Director) but forward to the endless spate of Mexi-Horrors often revolving around a gloomy hacienda (let's not forget that Bunuel spent almost 20 years rebuilding his film-making career in Mexico). Anyway, we get plenty of brooding atmosphere here – with the special effects dealing with the murderous limb being reasonably effective for their time; still, while the Max Steiner score was appropriately moody (particularly the main theme that, for plot purposes, recurs throughout), I was a bit distressed by how similar it sounded to the same composer's distinctive work on the Howard Hawks/Humphrey Bogart noir masterpiece THE BIG SLEEP which, though begun in 1944, was only released – after considerable re-shooting – just a few months prior to THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS itself! The cast the of film under review also highlights J. Carroll Naish as the Police Commissioner of the traditionally superstitious Italian village and Victor Francen as the exacting crippled pianist (encouraged in his illusions by impoverished composer Alda, cared for by lovely nurse King – who, naturally, arouses jealousy between the two – and assisted in his affairs by scholar/secretary Lorre, though too often finding himself on the receiving end, both physically and psychologically, of the old man's uncontrolled fury). When King is revealed as Francen's heir – over his only living relatives – immediately before his death from a staircase fall, foul play is suspected and Naish is called in; however, dead-of-night piano-playing suggests the involvement of the supernatural and, sure enough, the pianist's hand is discovered missing from his coffin! Lorre is particularly tormented by the latter, but he eventually manages to nail it down and lock it away in Francen's safe; ultimately, though, the culprit for the various goings-on at the villa emerges to be no more than human – with the depredations of the creeping hand attributed to his unbalanced mind (this disappointingly conventional ending, then, is augmented by an even lamer gag in which Naish uncharacteristically jokes around with the audience about the improbability of such a tall tale occurring)! In conclusion, this came off rather better than I recalled (I had not watched it in a long time) – even if, as I already explained, its reputation as a minor genre classic mainly boils down to Lorre's presence and the distinctive Warners style.