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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Showing posts with label Robert Alda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Alda. Show all posts

Friday, September 11, 2020

The Beast With Five Fingers (1946)

Starring Robert Alda, Andrea King, Peter Lorre, Victor Francen, J. Carrol Naish
Directed by Robert Florey
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

After a great pianist dies in an accident, his hand disappears from his coffin, and its trail leads to a murdered man, causing a small Italian village to suspect it's returned to life for revenge.

This dark tale was scripted by Universal horror veteran Curt Siodmak and directed by Robert Florey, who helmed Bela Lugosi's Murders In The Rue Morgue, the two bringing an impressive horror pedigree to the picture.  The special effects rendering the hand as it moves on its own are excellent, and there's fine performances from the entire cast.  Peter Lorre is especially captured well by the cinematography of Wesley Anderson, with many eerie closeups of his eyes and face as the actor speaks to us through his expressions as well as his voice.  An integral part of the film is the musical piece Francen's pianist and later his hand on its own performs, Chaconne in D minor BMW 1004 (per IMDB), which composer Max Steiner builds an excellent musical score around, incorporating its themes for dramatic effect throughout the story.  Overall it's an excellent and entertaining film in my view, and despite the period and provincial setting, it holds up well as a horror film today.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

The Devil's Hand (1961)

Starring Linda Christian, Robert Alda, Ariadna Welter, Neil Hamilton, Gere Craft
Directed by William J. Hole, Jr.
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

After being haunted in his dreams by images of a beautiful woman, a man finally tracks her down and agrees to join an evil cult in order to possess her.

I really enjoy this film- it doesn't have a large enough budget to show the supernatural powers the cult and Hamilton, as its leader, possesses, on the level of a movie like Night Of The Demon, but Hamilton and Christian in their performances really sell us on the influence of the cult.  Meredith Nicholson provides some excellent photography, and jazz musician Allyn Ferguson collaborated with Michael Terr on adding unique scoring to the cult's rituals.  It's fun seeing Hamilton, five years before becoming known for the noble Commissioner Gordon in the Batman TV series, giving life to such an evil character.  Intriguingly, the love triangle at the center of the film involves Christian and Welter, who per IMDB, were real-life sisters, although they don't have any meaningful scenes together.