Dedos macabros

This is one of the scariest movies I ever saw. It really plays with your mind. I admit that I first saw this movie as a kid int the back seat of my parent's car at the drive-in, and FOR YEARS, I was very afraid of the hand coming out from under sofas, beds and anywhere dark.

It connects with something deep in the subconscious as the hand is the part of the body that does all things and in this movie it is a power all unto itself.

The black and white film makes this movie a perfect expression of the subconscious, fearful and malevolent. Definitely one that I hope would eventually make it to DVD, and one to own if you're into the classics of this genre.

Classic early horror with Lorre in superb eye-popping form. Film is set in an Italian mansion where a wealthy pianist is close to death. When he passes away it turns out he has left everything in his will to his nurse, who incurs the wrath of the grasping relatives who have arrived. The bickering takes a sinister turn when the solicitor is strangled, seemingly by the severed hand of the dead pianist.

Lorre plays the deranged librarian whose sightings of the hand send him increasingly over the edge into madness. Despite the true horror potential of the storyline, the film tends to play more like a murder mystery. Much of the atmosphere is wasted by the air of light-heartedness, particularly the contrived slap-happy ending.

Misgivings aside, 'The Beast with Five Fingers' is still one of the genre making horrors, and while not in the same league as the heavyweight films of the 1930's like 'Frankenstein', 'The Invisible Man' or 'Mad Love', still rates serious attention.

Other severed hands featured in ' Dr Terror's House of Horrors, 'Evil Dead II', and Oliver Stone's 'The Hand'.

In a gloomy 1900s mansion in Italy a famed pianist(Victor Francen)lives with his devoted nurse(Andrea King) and his faithful secretary(Peter Lorre). The wheelchair bound pianist is only able to use one hand to play. An antique dealer(Robert Alda)adapts a piece of music to be played with one hand to dull the musician's bitterness. Francen dies after a rolling tumble down a staircase leaving his fortune to his nurse. A couple of upset relatives arrive protesting the will; but this moves to the back burner when murder and attempted murder is committed by the dead pianist's severed hand. Plus the hand likes to play the piano which adds to the terror. Lorre nails the hand in a box; and even throws it in a fire after confrontations with the disembodied member. Local Commissario Castanio(J. Carrol Naish)investigates this creepy mystery. Lorre is outstanding in a passive demented way. His wrestling with the severed hand is hilarious. Max Steiner is responsible for the haunting score. Great black and white from Warner Brothers.

It is very easy to critize the plot or story line of this picture, however, Peter Lorre made this film into an all time great classic along with the great supporting skills of Victor Francen and J. Carrol Naish. Lorre made his own human hand into a monster with his great acting talents, telling us all that mental illness can cause many things to happen within our very souls. The piano music pounded in my ears throughout this picture and the black and white effect made it a great thriller. Police inspector J Carrol Naish gave a great final touch to the ending of this picture, he gave us all a BIG LAUGH!

The Beast With Five Fingers predates any other ‘disembodied' hand film I've seen by a good twenty years. Such films include Dr. Terror's House Of Horror, The Hand, Evil Dead II, Severed Ties, and the two Addam's Family films and television series. This selection illustrates the gamut of horror film quality, from the delightful Evil Dead II to the atrocious Severed Ties. Happily, their precursor, The Beast With Five Fingers is ‘hands down' one of the better entries in this sub-genre.

The Beast… is set in an Italian village, home of the successful pianist, Francis Ingram, who resides in a sumptuous villa. Ingram is wheelchair bound as his entire right side is paralysed, and is forced to play piano using his single left hand. His style is suitably heavy and melancholic. He is a haunted figure, heavily reliant on his young nurse to the point of obsession, and fixated on his own death. Therefore, he summons his companions to dinner to witness the signing of his will. Amongst them is his personal secretary Hilary (Peter Lorre), a man with his own obsessions; astrology and the occult. It is not long before the Grim Reaper arrives as a belated dinner guest.

The film's most prominent actor is Peter Lorre. Lorre's career in horror fare has seen a slight regression over the years, though not as profound as some of his contemporaries such as Bela Lugosi and John Carradine. In the Thirties, Lorre starred in Fritz Lang's classic M and the rather good Mad Love. However, by the Sixties he was resigned to playing second fiddle to Vincent Price in horror-comedies The Comedy Of Terrors and The Raven. These two films are reasonable enough but eclipsed by his formative work. The Beast… makes a fitting mid-point between these two eras.

Lorre is an engaging actor, his childlike physique and strange manner always invoke some degree of viewer sympathy no matter how heinous his crimes (cf. M). J. Carrol Naish who plays the affable police inspector (yep, never heard of him before) is also notable but his more comedic moments do lessen the film's impact.

The special effects used to animate the hand are impressive for their time, although as the film is in b&w this helps mask its inadequacies somewhat. The rubber hand in Dr. Terror's House Of Horror is pitiable in comparison, and that was made twenty odd years later. The interplay between Lorre and the hand as he alternatively soothes and struggles with it are reminiscent of Ash's plight in Evil Dead II.

*spoliers*

The majority of the players seem primarily motivated by avarice. It is somewhat surprising then that the final bodycount is so low. A modern horror would have casually knocked off such ‘sinners' with glee. Perhaps, this highlights a rift between ‘vintage' and modern horror. The vintage film has a more human approach to its characters, although they do suffer in terms of danger and scares, they do not die. The usual modern approach is to emphasise the killings, the characters are just fodder for the killer's and the audience's whimsy. Of course this reasoning parallels the change in audience expectation and tolerance with time, and also what the changes the filmmakers could get away with in terms of censorship and ‘decency'.