Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Johan Louwet OK this movie might not excel in originality, in fact it is more of a whodunit mystery than outright horror. The horror moments all come from the cut of hand from the deceased pianist Francis Ingram. When he dies all of his fortune goes to his caretaker Julie much to the displeasure of Francis' nephew Donald and brother-in-law Raymond Arlington who are sure there must exist a previous will which stipulated all possessions went to Donald. Several people who want the heritage get suspicious of each other when a murder takes place. Things get really weird when bookkeeper Hilary, masterfully played by Peter Lorre says it was Francis' cut of hand responsible for the murders. Is it only in Hilary's imagination or not, the scenes with the living hand are brilliant. This might be where the maker of the Addams Family got his inspiration from to create the living hand named "Thing". Robert Alda who plays Francis' best friend Conrad kind of resembles Gomez Addams.

dougdoepke The real stars of the film are the art director (Fleischer) and the set director (Tilford). That cavernous house is one spooky nightmare with its swooping staircase and elaborate décor. Gloom hangs over the mansion like a big suffocating blanket. I'm thinking the lighting bill couldn't have been more then a dollar-fifty. No wonder Hilary (Lorre) goes mad, imagining all sorts of strange things as he caresses his sinister old books.To my mind, the movie's biggest horror is when Hilary threatens to knife the beauteous Julie (King). Was there ever a Hollywood actress with more aristocratic cheekbones than Andrea King. I suspect she was a little too icy-looking for real stardom. Nonetheless, catch her strong presence in Ride the Pink Horse (1947).It's a florid production, heavy on atmosphere along with Hilary's growing madness, but especially on the thunderous Max Steiner score that was apparently recorded at the bottom of a deep well. The creeping hand effect is well done, along with the striking long shot of it pounding the ivories like a concert from heck.But why give the whole gimmick a real world solution when the supernatural alternative is so much more fun. And what genius was responsible for the wink-and-nod last frame, with the Commisario (Naish) showing us it's really only a movie. Did some studio producer think we really needed convincing. Too bad since breaking character harms the carefully crafted atmosphere. My advice is to enjoy the good part before switching off the last ten minutes.

MARIO GAUCI This proved to be Warners' sole foray into the horror genre during the 1940s after a handful of variable efforts made in the previous decade (the John Barrymore vehicles SVENGALI and THE MAD GENIUS {both 1931}, the two-strip Technicolor showcases DOCTOR X {1932} and MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM {1933}, both featuring stalwarts Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, and the black-and-white sequel THE RETURN OF DR. X {1939}, with an ill-at-ease Humphrey Bogart).Though third-billed after romantic leads Robert Alda and Andrea King, Peter Lorre was obviously the star here – his own third stab at the popular form, following MAD LOVE (1935; produced by MGM) and THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK (1941; a Columbia picture also directed by Florey), and to which he would briefly return towards the end of his career at AIP. Lorre, in fact, was a staple of Warner's typical noir-ish style of the era (in which THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS itself is shot) – beginning with the classic THE MALTESE FALCON (1941) and continuing in his other films with either Humphrey Bogart or Sydney Greenstreet; actually, this was his only solo vehicle at that studio and, like the actor's earlier afore-mentioned genre turns, he not only carries it with aplomb but delivers a memorable performance.While the film is ideal Halloween fare (I watched a number of horror-related stuff throughout October in conjunction with my ongoing Luis Bunuel retrospective), it also forms part of that tribute to the Spanish Surrealist master because he claimed to have supplied Warners – while employed there during his American exile – with an idea for a motion picture about a rampaging disembodied hand, which they rejected at the time but eventually found itself on the screen anyway (though the story was attributed to somebody else)!; that said, he would have his revenge by 'appropriating' the device for himself – using it within a surreal context – for one of his major works i.e. THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (1962), with the result being clearly much superior to its 'inspiration'! For the record, other 'appearances' of the titular 'monster' are to be found in: THE WITCH'S MIRROR (1960), a cult item emanating from Mexico; the low-budgeter THE CRAWLING HAND (1963); the Amicus horror compendium DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965); the 1960s TV series and 1990s film versions of THE ADDAMS FAMILY; the Oliver Stone-Michael Caine dud THE HAND (1981); and, most recently, TRICK 'R TREAT (2007; which I have just watched).To get back to the subject at hand (no pun intended), the phoney European setting of THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS seems to have been influenced by that seen in the second phase of Universal horrors; even so, a good deal of the action takes place inside a sprawling villa – which, ironically, not only looks back to the 'animated' mansion from the French Poe adaptation THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (1928; on which Bunuel himself had served as Assistant Director) but forward to the endless spate of Mexi-Horrors often revolving around a gloomy hacienda (let's not forget that Bunuel spent almost 20 years rebuilding his film-making career in Mexico). Anyway, we get plenty of brooding atmosphere here – with the special effects dealing with the murderous limb being reasonably effective for their time; still, while the Max Steiner score was appropriately moody (particularly the main theme that, for plot purposes, recurs throughout), I was a bit distressed by how similar it sounded to the same composer's distinctive work on the Howard Hawks/Humphrey Bogart noir masterpiece THE BIG SLEEP which, though begun in 1944, was only released – after considerable re-shooting – just a few months prior to THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS itself! The cast the of film under review also highlights J. Carroll Naish as the Police Commissioner of the traditionally superstitious Italian village and Victor Francen as the exacting crippled pianist (encouraged in his illusions by impoverished composer Alda, cared for by lovely nurse King – who, naturally, arouses jealousy between the two – and assisted in his affairs by scholar/secretary Lorre, though too often finding himself on the receiving end, both physically and psychologically, of the old man's uncontrolled fury). When King is revealed as Francen's heir – over his only living relatives – immediately before his death from a staircase fall, foul play is suspected and Naish is called in; however, dead-of-night piano-playing suggests the involvement of the supernatural and, sure enough, the pianist's hand is discovered missing from his coffin! Lorre is particularly tormented by the latter, but he eventually manages to nail it down and lock it away in Francen's safe; ultimately, though, the culprit for the various goings-on at the villa emerges to be no more than human – with the depredations of the creeping hand attributed to his unbalanced mind (this disappointingly conventional ending, then, is augmented by an even lamer gag in which Naish uncharacteristically jokes around with the audience about the improbability of such a tall tale occurring)! In conclusion, this came off rather better than I recalled (I had not watched it in a long time) – even if, as I already explained, its reputation as a minor genre classic mainly boils down to Lorre's presence and the distinctive Warners style.

sol **SPOILERS** After having a stoke which had him lose the use of his right hand world famous pianist Francis Ingram, Victor Frances, became the left handed wounder of the music world. Ingram was now able to master and even improve the very difficult Bach Chaconne in D minor with one hand tackling the ivories. Ingram after months and months of tireless practice was single handedly able to accomplish this amazing feat better the most concert pianists could do with both their hands.It's when Ingram got on the outs with his creepy secretary Hillary Commins, Peter Lorre, that strange things began to happen at the Ingram Mansion. One of those things was Ingrm falling or being pushed down a flight of stairs and ending up dead with a broken neck! It's when Ingram's last will and testament was read that friction developed between Hilary and Ingram's only living relatives Mr. Arlington, Charles Dingle, and his son Donald, John Alvin. Not that Hilary and the Arlington's were disputing what the late Ingram left to them but the fact that he left all his worldly possessions to his nurse Julie Holden, Andrea King!It wasn't much later that the lawyer in the Ingram estate proceedings Durex, David Hoffman, was found strangled with the murderer's fingerprints belonging to the dead Francis Igram's left hand!Was it Ingram's hand that somehow detached itself from his body that did Durex in or was somebody using Inram's had to do his dirty work in murdering the now deceased lawyer! That job, finding Durex's killer, was left up to both Julie's boyfriend American con artist Bruce Conrad, Robert Alda, and local village police commissioner Ovidio Castiio,J Carrol Naish.***SPOILERS*** It soon becomes apparent to everyone watching that "The Hand" is the real McCoy in seeing it crawl all over the mansion and even play the piano, playing Bach's concerto, in its spear time. The secret to "The Hand's" strange powers is known only to the creepy Hilary who in his study of the black arts has found, or thinks he has, the secrets of both life death and the workings of the vast and mysterious universe in the books left to him in Ingram's secret occult library! As"The Hand" gets more and more daring in coming out into the open Young Donlad Arlington sufferers a complete emotional breakdown. The last we see of a terrified Donald, when he's confronted by "The Hand", is him running out of the Ingram Mansion stark raving mad and screaming hysterically at the top of his lungs! In the end it's Bruce Conrad as well as Police Commissioner Castanio who cracks the secret of "The Hand" and what exactly it had to do with the case of Duprex's murder and Donald's insanity. Something that the by now completely out of his skull Hilary, who was manipulating "The Hand" since his boss Imngram's death, was soon to find out the hard way. By him trying to put "The Hand" out of commission before, with "The Hand" now turning on Hilary, it did a job on him!