Sunday, October 26, 2014

THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS (1946)

A wealthy piano player lives in a remote Italian village with a bunch of servants and hangers-on circling around him day and night.  He seems to be in love with his new nurse, but she has the hots for his best friend.  Things happen slowly until finally the piano player dies in an accident.  His relatives object to the will leaving his vast estate to the nurse. Soon after, strange things start to happen like the piano playing in the middle of the night, the dead body's left hand getting cut off and his turncoat lawyer being strangled to death.  Could it be that the dead body's hand has came back from the dead and is attacking anybody who contests his will?!  Not likely.

THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS goes nowhere.  The story takes too long to get moving and once it does you're like "That's it?"  And that ending!  The final act drags on and on for until you're begging the movie to end and once it finally does...there's a joke ending!!!  It's like the filmmakers had zero faith in their product so they just slapped on a goofy ending as an apology or something.  I don't know. 

I like Peter Lorre and I had hopes that TBWFF was going to be like 1935's MADLOVE, but nah it was boring through and through.  I've seen commercials with a more compelling story.  Skip it.