The Hand

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.

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.

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.

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'm still giving it '7' for sheer weirdness more than anything else. As 'Malcolm' the reviewer of 26.5.2013 states, it mysteriously starts off with a caption of: 'Burma, 1946'. I wondered where that was going as strangely, it looks like WW2 - with British commandos being tortured by the Japanese. The latter threaten to cut off the hands of the soldiers unless they tittle-tattle their military secrets. Two don't and have their hands cut off. One, Derek Bond, alias 'Crawshaw', looks more nervy and it's left there, before going to the present day (well, 1960). It seems like a tramp has had his hand cut off in the present day by Crawshaw's bent, or lent on brother, who on police investigation by Ronald Leigh-hunt, is trying to get to the bottom of that. Brodie, one of the soldiers who had his hand cut off ends up dead after Crawshaw has visited him in the meanwhile. This can be a vague story, but as one other reviewer says perhaps some credit should go to 'Run for Your Wife' Ray Cooney who wrote and stars in it. It 'does' seem as if Crawshaw who retained his hand by not telling the Japanese soldiers the secrets, may have tried to ease his conscience by 'producing' a hand to Brodie and the other chum to show it wasn't him, or that his secret was out in the open as a sort of traitor. The cops eventually catch up with Crawshaw when he visits the other officer who wouldn't blab (and one-handless of course), Crawshaw runs off and you can guess what happens - let's say he may as well have held back in WW2. Strange, but loved the London locations. So much so (is this sad?) I looked them up and went to see them - quite interesting, most hadn't changed apart from one side of the road churned up for a council estate. Worth watching for the weird factor as well. (Okay, I admit, I've recorded it for my collection of British B-flicks!)