The Crawling Hand (1963)

Just perfect...

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

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.

Back in the 1970's, shortly after the blockbuster of "Jaws" was released, some music editor took the hit songs of the past and edited it into a conversation with the shark where one of the cracks was "Wouldn't you give your hand to a friend?". That tongue-in-cheek commentary goes perfect with this wonderfully dreadful science fiction/horror turkey that really goes arm in arm with some of the worst movies ever made. The surprising thing about the film is that as bad as it obviously is, it is totally entertaining! Rod Lauren is the hero, a young college student with ambitions of being a great scientist, is on the beach one day with his girlfriend (Sirry Steffen), frolicking a la Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee, and all of a sudden, her screams alert him to the presence of a disembodied hand. So like any good future mad scientist to be, what does he do? Go back later and collect it of course! An altercation with his landlady (Arline Judge, a forgotten "B" actress of the 30's) leads to the revelation that the arm has a mind of its own (or at least a brain in its pulse) and is not incapable of violent acts, including murder. Poor Lauren begins to physically change a la Jekyll and Hyde (basically he looks like he has a black eye) and begins to think he's the one committing all this violence. With the aid of NASA scientist Peter Breck and the local law (lead by Alan Hale, no less!), Lauren must prove his innocence which leads to a show-down in a junk yard of old cars and wild house cats.Totally fun with so many unnecessary plot elements (Steffen's professor father objecting to his daughter's romance with Laurence even though he's the professor's favorite student), a babbling old man who runs the soda shop spouting as if he was John Carradine, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die", etc.), the focus on the cult song "The Bird is the Word" by the Rivington's (not "Family Guy's" Peter Griffin who would constantly break into this forgotten ditty) and Steffen's Gidget like scenes with best pal Beverly Lunsford. Then, there's Allison Hayes whom I did not actually recall seeing in this movie until realizing that she had one scene at the very beginning and pretty much disappears. I researched her character and could not find any mention of her, making her participation in this totally forgettable. I guess with her large hand swooping down in "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman", she didn't want to upstage the crawling one here.And what about the two cats fighting over the crawling hand in the film's climactic scene? Would they find it purr-fect and give it two paws up, or would they hiss and scratch their way out of the litter box this seems to have crawled up from?

This is exactly the kind of low budget laugh fest that has fans of Fifties/Sixties schlock in Nirvana. A cadre of random b-movie superstars, all taking the whole absurd premise 110% seriously, a classic sci-fi/horror movie idea of disembodied body parts going on a rampage, cheap jack production, and the rocking awesomeness of "The Bird's The Word" by The Rivingtons (heard several times during the show). That's the precursor to the even more incredible "Surfin' Bird" by The Trashmen, so I'll have to give the producers thumbs up for good taste in music.An astronaut on his way back from the moon is possessed by...something. Something which is never explained, but it gives him a bad case of excess eyeliner. He begs mission control to blow up him and his spaceship, by pressing the red button (if I can quote Daffy Duck, "No! Not the wed button!") and they do so. The Head of the space agency deals with the loss of his colleague the only way that guys in bad potboilers from the 1950's can: he throws stuff and smokes a lot of cigarettes.Meanwhile, the astronaut's shredded hand and lower arm has somehow survived burning up in the atmosphere, and lands on a California beach, where budding med student Paul and his Swedish exchange student girlfriend find it. (What is it about foreign exchange student girlfriends in these cheap movies? THE GIANT GILA MONSTER has a French exchange student girlfriend. I guess if you hire a low-cost foreign actress looking to "break into the biz" you have to turn her into a foreign exchange student to have her presence there make any kind of sense.) Paul is a naughty boy and takes the severed arm home for further study. Once there, it promptly possesses him and causes him to kill his landlady.Then, guys from the Space agency show up in town, investigating the possible rogue hand. Alan Hale, the local Sheriff, wants them to stop putting their noses where they don't belong in his investigation. Can they stop the murderous Paul before it's too late? This whole thing is a riot, and appropriately, was covered by the gang at Mystery Science Theatre 3000. That version will cost you money to see, but the original version (thanks to the Public Domain) is free for streaming here online. At that price (nothing) it is certainly worth a watch. Grab the popcorn and turn off your brain.Oh, and the ending is one of those classic "The End?" cop-outs so favored by 1950's sci-fi B-movies. Okay, they don't actually use the question mark there, but it's implied. I guarantee you will get some yucks out of this film.

This is a very low budget 1963 space horror film with some great veteran actors who managed to keep this interesting with good acting and a crazy story.A young boy and his girlfriend in California are fooling around on the beach and the boy discovers this hand of a man with an astronaut marking and he proceeded to take this object home with him. However, the hand manages to take control of the young man and causes him to do some very wild things.This film involves the FBI, local police and people from a Space Agency trying to solve this mystery and who they can blame for these mistakes. Want to kill time, view this film.

Poor Alan Hale. Before he got the role of a certain short-tempered sea captain with a dim-witted first mate, he was stuck in grade-Z movies. An example is the idiotic stinker "The Crawling Hand". Since the title explains the whole plot, I'll tell you what I said while watching it: "Everybody leave him to his business. This may be the Skipper's only chance not to get frustrated by Gilligan." You can't even focus on the hand going after people (which, I gotta "hand" it to, is the best part)! Anyway, you can just picture the Skipper hitting Gilligan with his hat throughout the whole movie. Apparently, "MST3K" once showed this movie, although I've never seen that episode.