The Hand

I'm still giving it '7' for sheer weirdness more than anything else. As 'Malcolm' the reviewer of 26.5.2013 states, it mysteriously starts off with a caption of: 'Burma, 1946'. I wondered where that was going as strangely, it looks like WW2 - with British commandos being tortured by the Japanese. The latter threaten to cut off the hands of the soldiers unless they tittle-tattle their military secrets. Two don't and have their hands cut off. One, Derek Bond, alias 'Crawshaw', looks more nervy and it's left there, before going to the present day (well, 1960). It seems like a tramp has had his hand cut off in the present day by Crawshaw's bent, or lent on brother, who on police investigation by Ronald Leigh-hunt, is trying to get to the bottom of that. Brodie, one of the soldiers who had his hand cut off ends up dead after Crawshaw has visited him in the meanwhile. This can be a vague story, but as one other reviewer says perhaps some credit should go to 'Run for Your Wife' Ray Cooney who wrote and stars in it. It 'does' seem as if Crawshaw who retained his hand by not telling the Japanese soldiers the secrets, may have tried to ease his conscience by 'producing' a hand to Brodie and the other chum to show it wasn't him, or that his secret was out in the open as a sort of traitor. The cops eventually catch up with Crawshaw when he visits the other officer who wouldn't blab (and one-handless of course), Crawshaw runs off and you can guess what happens - let's say he may as well have held back in WW2. Strange, but loved the London locations. So much so (is this sad?) I looked them up and went to see them - quite interesting, most hadn't changed apart from one side of the road churned up for a council estate. Worth watching for the weird factor as well. (Okay, I admit, I've recorded it for my collection of British B-flicks!)

I was expecting this to be a horror film of the disembodied hand variety (as would be the case with its 1981 namesake, which, incidentally, I watched fairly recently); instead, it's an eccentric, cheap but surprisingly tolerable Edgar Wallace-type policier which, for its modest length (running barely over an hour), turns out to have an unnecessarily complex plot – wherein myriad characters (many of them having lost the titular body part) are involved with organ-trafficking, impersonation, suicide, murder and the like!

The plot has a WWII Burma-set prologue in which three British soldiers are captured by the Japanese; the latter seek to learn the position and number of the opposing Allied forces and, to this end, two of the prisoners suffer the loss of a hand. Then, we cut to the present day, where it transpires that the third had turned cowardly – so his companions' sacrifice was in vain – and, rather than having the maimed duo seeking the traitor out for revenge, it is he who's still persecuting them! The finale, however, sees the villain getting his just desserts in a most ironic (yet totally predictable) fashion.

Investigating the weird goings-on are a couple of Scotland Yard detectives; bafflingly, one of the most frustrating aspects to this intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying film is the peculiar fact that a lot of the male actors here boast strikingly similar physiognomies and, so as not to get hopelessly confused, one has to keep reminding himself of just who the various characters are and what they represent!

When I first saw this movie in the 1960's, it seemed an interesting little piece, which stood up quite well as a double-bill feature (with Village of the Damned, maybe?). However, now it just comes across as a rag-tag effort with not much substance, and virtually no style whatsoever. The opening scenes are quite effective, and are by far the best in the film. What follows is largely disappointing, and the storyline has more holes in it than a colander - it just barely makes any sense. This isn't helped by the poor direction & editing, as well as the stilted acting, especially by the lead detective played by Ronald Leigh-Hunt, who seems to hesitate, in thought, every time a line is to be delivered. The transfer to DVD is also poor and, all in all, the end product is a big let down.

I am extremely indebted to the other reviewers of this Butchers B Movie since i realised after viewing it that i had rather lost the plot.I just could not fathom out what was happening.Mind you when a film starts with the subtitle "Burma 1946" and starts with scenes set in the Second world war you are bound to be a bit mystified.As has been stated by other reviewers the best part of the film is the opening 7 minutes set in Burma.The rest of the film rather lets it all down.The climax in particular is extremely badly handled.The ending is predictable and ironic but there is a total lack of suspense.You would think that with just an hour to tell a story that it could be kept fairly straightforward,but alas the producers of this film failed to achieve that.

This is a strange addition to the British 60's Horror collection- though in truth it also fits somewhere between mild thriller and fairly obvious whodunnit. First qu: why do the film's producers go to the trouble of setting the opening scenes as "Burma - 1946", when Japan had surrendered in August 1945, ending WW2? An inauspicious start.

The acting is a little stilted, although interesting to see Ray Cooney (the future king of farce) standing in as Ronald Leigh-Hunt's sidekick. Unfortunately the screenplay isn't Cooney's best and the editing is so frantic it must have been done with the finesse of a chainsaw. Despite all this and its obvious shoestring budget, there's some fun to had for us cult b+w geeks...