directed by Robert Florey
story by William Fryer Harvey
written by Curt Siodmak
starring Peter Lorre, Robert Alda, Andrea King, Victor Francen, J. Carrol Naish, Charles Dingle, John Alvin, David Hoffman
In a creepy old Italian castle, a retiring, nearly crippled pianist named Frances Ingram (Francen) whiles away his sad time playing Bach chaccone’s with his left hand and grimacing about the future. He is cared for by his lovely American nurse Julie (King) and attended to by his loyal secretary Hilary Cummins (Lorre) who spends most of his time in the enormous library attempting to learn how to tell the precise moment a person is going to die. After Ingram gathers everyone, including the shady “authentic” artifacts dealer Bruce Conrad (Alda) and the shifty-eyed lawyer Duprex (Hoffman), he announces that he wants them all to testify to his sanity so he can have his will authorized. After leaving everything to Julia for whom he has developed intense erotic feelings, he promptly crashes his wheelchair down the stairs and breaks his neck.
Upon the murder of Duprex, who was going to work for Ingram’s heirs Mr. Arlington (Dingle) and his son Don (Alvin) to overturn the will, it is discovered that Ingram’s hand has been severed which leads to a strange assertion that his hand has been somehow involved with the killing. The rest of the film works with this premise as the hand continues to haunt those who remain behind.
We see the hand crawling about, playing the same chaccone, and trying to choke the life out of Don. It’s a veritable mystery and this is where the film goes slightly off track. At first it is all about atmospherics and setting the mood for the rest of the film. It’s dark and gloomy and the Bach piece is haunting, heavy and mood-splitting. The tone is set for a legitimate thriller but unfortunately all that is left is a meek whodunnit story where the culprit gives his hand away too early for it to be any good at all.
Truly the greatest thing about this film is the character of Hilary as played by the great Peter Lorre. He’s at times demonic, pathetic, psychotic, and terribly strange. He slouches about, damaged, broken by something or someone. He obsessively studies his astrology books hoping to gain a secret he can later employ in his masterwork. The film just doesn’t work so well without him as the other characters cease to matter whenever Lorre is on the screen. His movements, his deeds alone make any difference in the end and the other characters do nothing of particular import throughout the film. They just exist to orbit around him and the agony of his intensity dominates every frame he is in. It’s clear that these are not the kind of actors who should be attempting to create a work of horror fiction. They should be in lighthearted fare where the boy gets the girl and everything works out on the farm. Instead, they are miscast in roles that are as throwaway as a girl’s dead lipstick container.
We are led to believe throughout the film that the hand is committing murder as well as playing the piano. Of course, this is not the sort of film that would allow that sort of thing to continue so a more pedestrian explanation is sought that drives the film to a halt. There should be more madness here, not less. There should be blood-curdling screams, sweaty palms, and more terrified locals babbling incoherently to their gods about demons and devils and such. Of course, this film wants to be a quiet murder mystery that just happens to star Peter Lorre. It fails to create a film around his character so he doesn’t stand out so much as the only thing worth watching. A better film would have given the other characters more interesting things to do but these louts do and say nothing that truly matters. They cannot die fast enough although it soon is made clear that the killer, hand or no, is limited in his vocation as far as killings are concerned. So, we are left with a drab cast who are given nothing to do save Peter Lorre and a script that doesn’t know how to play off of the fears that such a potentiality would engender. Because of the nature of the story, the film makers are limited to the kinds of things they might have tried in this film. For starters there can be no great seduction scene where the hand undresses and caresses the firm body of the luscious Miss Julie. That probably wouldn’t have gone over very well in 1946 but they still could have intimated that untoward behavior was taking place between Julie and the Hand.
Overall, this film works for as long as Peter Lorre is on the screen. He brings a chilling exactness to his character and introduces an element of magic to the film that it otherwise lacks. The story begins promisingly enough and takes its time revealing the key players and the gloomy confines of the mansion. However, once it is apparent that there is a murder to be solved, it devolves into a run of the mill, generic detective story that loses the impressive air of confusion and gloom that hangs over the early sections of the film. With anyone other than Lorre in the role of Hilary there wouldn’t be any suspense at all and no reason to care one way or another what happens in the end to “solve” the great mystery. Lorre delivers a sad, endearing portrait of a man who simply wants to be left with himself so he can continue to apply direct knowledge to his aims and intentions. Lorre plays him as a deeply sympathetic character who shuffles about back and forth between the library and his quarters. He’s utterly heartbreaking to watch and discover as the film moves along toward it’s compromised conclusion. This film is watchable only because the viewer cannot take their eyes off of Lorre for even a second.
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