The Beast with Five Fingers (1947)

Simply Perfect

Good movie but grossly overrated

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Anchored by the great Peter Lorre, "The Beast with Five Fingers" is an excellent horror-tinged melodrama, in which a disparate group of people is stuck in a creepy old home with what may be a vengeful and murderous spirit. The titular 'beast' is a disembodied, animated hand, which may or may not be corporal, and, as the story involves a disputed inheritance, everyone is both a potential suspect and a potential victim. Central to the story is Victor Francen's crippled musician character and the outstanding score, which is designed to be played by a one-handed pianist, provides both the film's music as well as serves as a plot point. The story, characters (esp. Lorre), sets, and music contribute to an excellent 'gothic' feel (marred somewhat by an unnecessary brief 'comic' epilogue) and, for a pre-CGI film, the special effects are convincing and effective. Good, old-school spooky fun.

A nasty old man, Francis Ingram dies. When it comes time to read his will, the two remaining family members arrive and automatically assume that the man's fortune is now theirs. They are a nasty pair and they're in for a nasty surprise when the will is read, as the fortune is left instead to his nurse. The pair plan on using a crooked attorney to contest the will but soon after they make this plan, folks start dying--and it looks as if the dead man, or perhaps the dead man's hand is doing the killing! I never watched this film until recently because I thought I'd already seen it. After all, Peter Lorre is in this film and "Mad Love"--and both films are about possessed hands that kill! Fortunately, the two movies sound very similar but are different enough that it's worth seeing both. However, unlike "Mad Love", "The Beast With Five Fingers" suffers late in the film because the ending goes on a bit long AND is a bit dumb. After all, when the identity of the killer is known, the person who realizes it TELLS the killer and then admits that they haven't told anyone!! Duh! Despite this, the effect of the crawling hand is cool and the film engaging.

A wealthy wheelchair-bound pianist (Victor Francen) with a nasty temper is murdered. As the police investigate, more murders occur and soon suspicion falls on the unlikeliest of suspects: the pianist's severed hand!Stories involving disembodied hands that kill people have been around for a long time. I think this is the first such movie made with this theme and, for my money, it's the best. Robert Alda (father of Alan Alda) plays the slightly cynical hero of the film. He does fine except for the romantic stuff with lovely Andrea King. That part of the movie is weak but, to be fair, it almost always was in these types of films. The real stars are the wonderful character actors making up the rest of the cast. Peter Lorre, unsurprisingly, steals every scene with a gripping performance. Any movie with J. Carrol Naish in it is always worth checking out. Venerable Victor Francen does a fantastic job. Charles Dingle is hissable as only he could be. Wonderful atmospheric direction from Robert Florey with a nice screenplay by Curt Siodmak. One of the best horror movies of the '40s NOT made by Universal or RKO. Warner Bros. didn't make many horror movies back in the day but, judging by this film, maybe they should have. Definitely one you will want to see if you're a fan of horror/thriller films from the period.

... the rest of the show is J.Carrol Naish as the understated but determined Police Commissario Ovidio Castanio, and Victor Francen as Francis Ingram, a paralyzed concert pianist. Together they take a script that drags in spots and make it memorable with some great performances. The opening scene is rather misleading as it makes you think that this film is going to be about petty con man Conrad Ryler (Robert Alda) and the police official that recognizes but looks the other way at his somewhat crooked ways (J. Carroll Naish). It is not.The story quickly moves to the estate of invalid pianist Francis Ingram, his body completely paralyzed save his left hand, being cared for by his nurse Julie (Andrea King). Francis is obviously in love with her, but realizes the two could never have a real relationship. However, this doesn't prevent him from being horribly jealous of her. He has an eccentric private secretary (Peter Lorre as Hilary) who doesn't seem to be doing any work at all for Francis, instead he spends all of his time studying astrology. This is OK with Francis as he is busy studying Julie. All of this Gothic atmosphere leads up to Francis accidentally falling down the stairs to his death, his greedy estranged relatives arriving from England, and their discovery that Francis has written his nephew out of the will and given everything to his nurse Julie. True to the form of the one percent, these greedy relatives are not good sports about this and threaten to break the will even if they have to accuse Julie of murder - and all with the help of Francis' own lawyer who drew up the will in the first place - for a cut of the estate of course. The piano, locked since Francis' death, is heard to play at night yet nobody is around and the next morning the lawyer is found strangled dead. Later the greedy nephew almost meets the same fate. Some investigation by the police finds that Francis' one good hand is missing from his body. Is Francis' disembodied hand going about wreaking vigilante justice on those that are wronging him after death? Of course not! After all, this isn't Universal Studios, this is Warner Brothers, and there is a reasonable explanation. I'll let you watch and find out what that is.The last scene had me quite upset. Julie just signs over the estate to the greedy relatives and walks away from the whole thing, penniless. At least "the hand" could have done away with the two greedy relatives and let kind Julie keep what Francis intended her to have. I guess in the production code era, murder is wrong but greed is good.