The Hand

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Henry Cass; Produced by Bill Luckwell; Released in America by American-International Picture. Screenplay by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton; Photography by James Harvey; Edited by Robert Hlll, Music by Wilfred Burns. Starring: Derek Bond, Reed de Rouen, Ronald Leigh-Hunt, Ray Cooney and Gwenda Ewen.

Unfolding in a perfectly linear style, this is a gory story of Japanese mutilation of British prisoners in Burma leading to a bizarre series of London mutilations and murders several years later. This programmed murder-mystery becomes a horror film due to the hand-amputation fetish, but its lack of style and atmosphere reduce it to the routine.

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.

It was very rare that the British film industry gave us such films, besides the pure horror genre in the Hammer Films or Tiggon productions fashion, most notorious horror films companies. Because this film is a crime thriller with a rather American style plot. It is short, maybe too short for this kind of scheme. It is tense, sharp, riveting, exciting, maybe the most interesting film from director Henry Cass, who gave us some horror flicks. It is not complex to understand or follow, no real deep mystery plot, complicated links to assimilate. It is useless to put many action scenes in such a story which may seem a bit disturbing for some audiences. I highly recommend it to any movie buff.

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.

When I first saw this movie in the 1960's, it seemed an interesting little piece, which stood up quite well as a double-bill feature (with Village of the Damned, maybe?). However, now it just comes across as a rag-tag effort with not much substance, and virtually no style whatsoever. The opening scenes are quite effective, and are by far the best in the film. What follows is largely disappointing, and the storyline has more holes in it than a colander - it just barely makes any sense. This isn't helped by the poor direction & editing, as well as the stilted acting, especially by the lead detective played by Ronald Leigh-Hunt, who seems to hesitate, in thought, every time a line is to be delivered. The transfer to DVD is also poor and, all in all, the end product is a big let down.