The BEAST with FIVE FINGERS
Warner Bros. / First National (1946) Dir. Robert Florey
88 min. / B&W / 1.37:1 / 1080p / DTS-HD MA English 2.0 Mono
A dead pianist's amputated hand crawls around a mansion strangling people, and with a pitch like that – Jack Warner notoriously hated horror films – one wonders how this movie ever got green-lighted, especially considering it came in a period in which monster movies were out of style, and ESPECIALLY especially considering that it was Warners’ release for Christmas week, 1946.
The 1946-47 era being so light on horror films that Beast has been rather inflated from a pretty good horror film to its current pedestal as an all-time classic (the commentary track just raves about it). As a kid, I had one of those four-minute Castle Films silent condensed versions of this film and GOSH that was a great movie. Unfortunately, director Florey’s hour-and-a-half offering goes down some strange roads (the “Italian” comic policeman played by J. Carrol Naish was a bad idea). While it’s haunted Peter Lorre who is the main menace in the film (besides the crawling hand), leading man Robert Alda, who is supposed to be a handsome rake, is actually much creepier. Andrea King is the pretty girl he’s wooing, and her Marie Antoinette hairdo makes it look as though she has an albino squid perched on her head.
Almost incidental to the plot (we’re here for the hand, after all) is the setting: an old, dark house in an Italian village of many years ago, with the pianist (not dead yet) terrorizing his family, nurse, lawyer, astrologer assistant Lorre, and random passers-by. No wonder somebody cut his hand off and set it loose in the mansion, although don’t look for rational explanations here, writer Curt Siodmak was stumped by that. The special effects range from good to great, no complaint there, and one assumes this film inspired the Addams Family’s Thing, although The Beast never does bring in the mail.
Million-dollar Dialog:
Mr. Lorre: "IT'S NOT IN MY MIND! CAN'T YOU HEAR IT? IT'S BURSTING MY EAR DRUMS! I CAN'T STAND IT! I CAN'T STAND IT!"
Settle down, Peter.
The supposed comic relief is cringe worthy; Inspector Naish exits at the end of the film and then comes back in, not once but twice, to talk to us in the audience about how stupid the movie we just saw was. (Okay, THAT part I agree with, but he should've said, "This movie, she's a-been way too long already, I'm-a choost gonna get my ass-a outta here, who's-a with me, eh?")
As per their standards, the Warner Archive Blu-ray is outstanding, and includes brand new and highly informative commentary by film historians Dr. Steve Haberman and Constantine Nasr, who love the movie but hate the “funny” Italian inspector as much as I do. There are also two very unusual cartoons, both from 1947 and neither featuring any of the Looney Tunes superstars: The Foxy Duckling and The Gay Anties, the latter of which seemingly making its home video debut. The Beast’s trailer is included.
Play this late at night on your personal Shock Theatre; it plays better in the wee, wee hours than any other hour.
