The Beast with Five Fingers

The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) is a horror film directed by Robert Florey and with a screenplay by Curt Siodmak, based on a short story by W. F. Harvey first published in the New Decameron. The original music score was composed by Max Steiner. The film was marketed with the tagline "A sensation of screaming suspense!" Peter Lorre stars in the film, his last with Warner Brothers. (In his 1982 autobiography My Last Sigh, Surrealist director Lui... more

The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) is a horror film directed by Robert Florey and with a screenplay by Curt Siodmak, based on a short story by W. F. Harvey first published in the New Decameron. The original music score was composed by Max Steiner. The film was marketed with the tagline "A sensation of screaming suspense!" Peter Lorre stars in the film, his last with Warner Brothers. (In his 1982 autobiography My Last Sigh, Surrealist director Luis Buñuel wrote that while at Warner Brothers dubbing films into Spanish 1942-1946, he submitted a story about a murderous disembodied hand, then moved to Mexico and re-started his career as director.) The much-played piano piece is a transcription for left hand by Warner Bros. pianist Victor Aller of the chaconne from Johann Sebastian Bach's Violin Partita in D minor. The film was remade in 1981 by director Oliver Stone as The Hand. Evil is running amok in an Italian village, mostly in the estate of a deceased pianist where murders begin to... less