3 / 5 Aug '09Tagline: You've never seen the like of it!
Directed by: Robert Florey
Written by: Curt Sidomak, William Fryer Harvey
Actors include: Robert Alda, Andrea King, Peter Lorre
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Length: 88 minutes
Banned: Finland
Country: USA
Review:
I have always wanted to see this since I was little, and well I hate to say I was disappointed. The story is about a rich old miser who rolls down a huge staircase and dies. From there it's a dull talky inheritance thing for about an hour (and it's only 88 minutes) where everyone is establishing their motives. Peter Lorre was great and creepy and all of that as the dude who doesn't want to lose his books. For some reason he keeps running into the severed hand of the millionaire, and it's a little ticked off. Nobody else seems to see this hand but they've heard the millionaire playing a song that he could only have played on the piano. It's a mystery all right, and it's kinda fun once the first hour wears off (particularly watching Lorre duel with the hand ala Bugs Bunny or something). It's not terribly frightening in any way, it's way too talky and the story is alright but certainly could have been made more interesting. Oliver Stone's remake of this story The Hand (1981) is really about the same in quality unfortunately, it's just got oodles of gore. I'm kind of surprised that this was as dull as it was but I do tend to find that the talky '40s era horror isn't usually my bag so maybe that is the problem.
Availability: Never on DVD as far as I understand
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