The Beast with Five Fingers – with Peter Lorre
The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) begins slowly but eventually has some good entertainment. The star of this movie is Peter Lorre and he has a LOT to do in his part as Hilary, a researcher and assistant for Francis Bacon. Lorre reads a lot of Bacon’s famous books and other published materials, really coveting his time in Bacon’s library. Victor Francen appears in a very small part as Francis Bacon, now confined to a wheelchair. While depressed, Bacon plays the piano in the most exaggerated style I’ve ever seen and his nurse sits there straight-faced listening to the music, but she eventually nods off. While unwatched, Bacon dies. Later, everybody shows up for the reading of his Will, in one of the most boring and generic openings around. It improves. Eventually.
A little further into the movie, we get to see what happened after Bacon’s nurse fell asleep, in a scene where Hilary argues with Bacon. Lorre as Hilary gets increasingly mad and resentful, apparently not mentioned in Bacon’s Will, possibly because he forgot the man’s birthday. In this last action, Bacon choked Hilary with his superhuman HAND, even though Hilary promised to buy him a birthday present. Lorre begins investigating more deaths around Bacon’s mansion when he hears and witnesses some strange evidence that the severed hand of the famous philosopher may be responsible.
Lorre REALLY hams it up and goes off the deep end searching for The HAND aka the BEAST, and probably should have been sedated at least two or three times in the process. Some of the other guests try to help Hilary but it’s no use, because he’s seriously cracked. Maybe the best scene in the movie is the end where the severed hand plays the piano again, driving Hilary nuts. His problem is that nobody else really believes him, and director Robert Florey frames it in such a way to make us the audience doubt him too. This adds some interesting depth and nuance to the movie not seen in other horror films around that time. Eventually, Hilary throws the HAND in the fire but he can’t kill it! Before this movie, Lorre really wasn’t a horror mainstay but he certainly solidified his reputation here, using his portrayal of somebody with serious mental issues to become quite memorable.
Overall, this is a good movie, but it’s outlandish and over-the-top. Lorre puts on a great performance as he builds up his mania and psycho obsession with Francis Bacon’s HAND. The last ten minutes of the movie are the best part, where Hilary starts off by whining and complaining about the HAND’s bad piano playing, “It’s hurting my ear drums! I can’t stand it! I CAN’T STAND IT!” he yells. In fact, Johannes Brahms himself was responsible for rearranging some Bach music into the one-handed piece used in the movie that torments Hilary. Hilary wanders the house until he finds the severed HAND crawling back to bed and snatches it up in his mania, but it leaps up and chokes him to death like Francis tried to do before his death. Afterward, the HAND fades from existence. This part is important, because we’re left wondering if the HAND was a supernatural ghost or just in Hilary’s mind, but an exposition dump is tacked on at the end to answer that question. It’s not really needed, I believe. I think the director didn’t trust the audience to be really that smart. There is also a little joke at the end where the maid faints when she sees a dropped glove and thinks it’s the HAND back all over again. Silly girl.
This movie was seen on Svengoolie on March 26.
