Keeping mementoes of prior careers?
The awkwardly named The Beast With Five Fingers (1946) is a relatively sophisticated foray into damaged personalities and how they can lead to horror. Francis Ingram is a former concert pianist who has suffered an accident that has paralyzed one of his hands, and has retired to a small village in Italy to recover. With him are his secretary, Hilary, a composer/arranger, Bruce, along with a nurse to whom Francis has become attached, Julie. Hilary and Bruce’s relationship with Francis is a dependency, as neither are capable of making a living on their own, while Julie is tiring of Francis’ constant demands, and is considering leaving and returning to America.
And then, one night, Francis suffers some sort of visual problem and plunges down the stairs in his wheelchair.
The vultures appear immediately, in the form of a former brother-in-law and his son, Raymond and Donald, and soon enough, the latest will, signed just a few days before, is read: Julie, who is all set to leave, is the sole inheritor. When Raymond hectors her, she digs in her heels. The lawyer then secretly consults with the in-laws and suggests the will is illegitimate, which pleases them.
Until they find his dead body the next day.
Slowly but surely, the police and the survivors are lead to the conclusion that the late Francis’ single working hand, mobile and malignant, is responsible for the lawyer’s death, and other attacks, and the tension builds until a night or two later, when one of the survivors can hear and see the hand actually playing the grand piano.
Nicely plotted and acted, with minimalist but effective special effects, this is a comfortably competent member of the horror genre, with the exception of the last five minutes, which becomes an odd comedy piece that doesn’t fit the rest of the film. The greatest mystery may lay in that odd little vignette.
But otherwise, it’s not bad. A period piece, if you like.
