The Hand

Director Henry Cass's final exploitation film before he embraced Moral Rearmament.

Both very cheap and very nasty with an incredibly complicated plot devised by a young Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton, who also kept costs down by both playing coppers investgating a gruesome discovery made in a then contemporary East End of payphones with button Bs (when the NHS was already staffed by foreign nurses).

In only sixty minutes it also manages to throw in Japanese wartime atrocities and incredibly only carried an 'A' certificate from the British censor. But AIP were sufficiently satisfied with it to release it stateside.

This is a strange addition to the British 60's Horror collection- though in truth it also fits somewhere between mild thriller and fairly obvious whodunnit. First qu: why do the film's producers go to the trouble of setting the opening scenes as "Burma - 1946", when Japan had surrendered in August 1945, ending WW2? An inauspicious start.

The acting is a little stilted, although interesting to see Ray Cooney (the future king of farce) standing in as Ronald Leigh-Hunt's sidekick. Unfortunately the screenplay isn't Cooney's best and the editing is so frantic it must have been done with the finesse of a chainsaw. Despite all this and its obvious shoestring budget, there's some fun to had for us cult b+w geeks...

I find the poster art for The Hand great and it made me want to check it out. British 1960 also intrigued me as well. It is a very British affair, the jazzy score is wonderful, and it did keep me engaged for the most part despite a story that I found overcrowded with character names and all a bit confusing. It's not really a horror film as much as a suspense/who done it affair with a couple slightly grisly moments. As for the cast, it's a large cast many of whom look somewhat alike due to the rather poor film quality. Despite its shortcomings I still found The Hand to be a small little film to be one worth checking out.

I am extremely indebted to the other reviewers of this Butchers B Movie since i realised after viewing it that i had rather lost the plot.I just could not fathom out what was happening.Mind you when a film starts with the subtitle "Burma 1946" and starts with scenes set in the Second world war you are bound to be a bit mystified.As has been stated by other reviewers the best part of the film is the opening 7 minutes set in Burma.The rest of the film rather lets it all down.The climax in particular is extremely badly handled.The ending is predictable and ironic but there is a total lack of suspense.You would think that with just an hour to tell a story that it could be kept fairly straightforward,but alas the producers of this film failed to achieve that.

Great start!

And yeah - lots of talk, and no action - which was the curse of British B movies of the time. But you've got to pay attention to the dialogue this time, or you won't work out what the motivation is. In other words, Ray Cooney's dialogue is a bit cleverer than the norm at the time.

Nasty shots (for 1961) - one severed hand (natch!)

Who's the murderer, then? Bloody Hell - Derek Bond has the lead role on the posters, and doesn't appear after the MEANINGFUL prologue until well into the movie.

Ray Cooney wrote the screenplay, and went on to script several extremely successful comedy/farce plays. This seems to have been his only foray into nasty stuff.He also appears in the movie. Several rewinds suggest that he's the main Cop's second hand( heh, heh!) man.(The credits aren't helpful)

I had to hunt this movie down after many years. Hard to find. Is it good? Well - all I can say is that, had I the chance to view it at the time, I may not have been disappointed. Very English, shoestring budget. Today?

It's an hour long, you've got to pay attention to throw-away dialogue - but it's much better than those Butcher Film movies that send you to sleep after 5 minutes and -

Amazing for 1960: Bad language! In the prologue, a character calls his WW2 captors "Dirty Bastards!" Believe me, STRONG stuff for the time.

BUT - this is NOT a lost classic. Tape it on late night TV if it ever shows, but don't pay what I did to give you this review.

GEISTERZUG