Something else we never covered here in Spooktacular Eight (or the blog, if i remember correctly), the “killer hand subgenre” of horror.
Ok, “subgenre” is being very generous, “microgenre” is more correct, as there’s notmuch to cover, “Hand” from the Addams Family doesn’t count, so it’s mostly this (kinda, not really, for reasons i will explain), 1963’s The Crawling Hand, 1981’s The Hand and 1999’s Idle Hands.
No, ironically Manos doesn’t count either, so doesn’t the classic scene with Ash’s hand in Evil Dead 2, nor does more recent stuff like Talk To Me, despite a hand being relevant to the plot and not just a thing that happens in a random scene of the movie, or just a segment of an anthology like in Dr’s Terror House Of Horrors (1965).
But by that logic i shouldn’t count 1924’s Hands Of Orlac (of which this could be considered a sorta of remake, not the first anyway) or this movie either….but before that, plot.
The premise is pretty typical stuff for a 40s horror film (i’d add “Universal” but not this time, it’s a Warner Bros production): Francis, a pianist, is on the verge of dying, so he calls upon him few friends for the reading of his will, including Hillary (played by Peter Lorre), who works for him, but in his spare time peruses Francis’ vast library of ancient astrology, becoming obsessed on the matter.
Francis eventually dies shortly after, so some of Francis’ cousins come up to inherit his vast book collection, which angers Hillary, already shaken by being strangled with unnatural force by Francis after a heated argument with him.
Making matters worse, a lot of people also start being killed afterwards, and it becomes unsure if there’s an actual disembodied hand going around strangling people, or if it’s just Hillary gone mad, killing the people himself yet believing that it was Francis’ detatched human paw struggling around like a Medievil quest-character, choking people and playing the piano.
There are some 40s-isms, like the italian police commissioner (since it’s supposed to take place in the fictional small, mountain-ish italian town of “San Francesco”, also supposedly “south italian coded” since they mention the women that professionally go lament at a funeral or wake until dusk) is played by so not italian J. Carrol Naish, actually a good and recurring supporting actors in many horror Universal films, whom also was pretty much typecast as “the foreign man”, and was also hit by the Dracula VS Frankenstein Curse, regrettably.
Cast it’s pretty good, actually, with Robert Alda, Andrea King, Victor Francen, even the smaller roles like the mansion butler being played by William Edmunds, whom would also appear in It’s A Wonderful Life.
but the star here is Peter Lorre, maybe it wasn’t meant that way at the time, but regardless there’s no mistake his performance is just amazing and elevates what would have felt like a hockey film, he steals the show every single time, and it’s just primo Lorre, top-tier stuff from him.
I echo the sentiments of fellow critics that said this could be on par with his performance in Dial M For Murder, if nothing else because he’s acting in a “Killer hand” film and this is still before his carrer led him to become a horror icon of the era.
And honestly it’s a good thing because this film is also very uneven.
Also, as others have pointed out, the beginning isn’t terrible…but it is stuffy, to be gentle, it’s definitely one of more boring starts for a film like this, but it does pay off sticking through some more than mild tedium, it really does, as the plot thickens a bit, Lorre becomes even more paranoid and mad as the already tense situation for the contested will is peppered with strange events and eventually murders that he might unknowningly have committed.
Problem is, the movie decides at the very end not only to confirm beyond any doubt that it was actually Hillary being crazy, killing people and imagining seeing the severed hand of Francis doing it, playing the piano, etc., BUT also explain how he did it and re-iterate how it must have looked like to him, even if scenes before other characters basically did the same thing better indirectly and without straight up murder all the mystery that might have been left in such an inelegant way.
While i do respect the movie for having some sense of humour and knowing of the premise itself feeling hockey… it really could cut the entire epilogue and leave the ending ambiguous, or at least the commissionier looking at the audience for a last minute joking at/with the audience, it really feels out of tone with everything that happened before.
Almost like an obligation since the premise most likely sounded silly even back then.
Overall, The Beast With Five Fingers it’s a decent but flawed (expecially at both ends), the sets are quite good, the cast it’s prety good too, and it’s worth getting through the boring beginning, if nothing else for the amazing performance by Peter Lorre, especially if you dig old B&W horror films, you will find a nice eerie surprise.
This is indeed an underrated 40s horror film worth of more recognition, and despite some flaws it holds up surprisingly well today.
Almost as surprising as the “killer hand” niche being as big as it is.
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