WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: The Beast With Five Fingers 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:08.680 Hello, and welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. My name 0:00:08.760 --> 0:00:12.520 is Joe McCormick. Today we're bringing you an older episode 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:16.079 of Weird House Cinema, the movie show that Rob and 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.239 I do on Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Normally, Weird 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.760 House Cinema airs every Friday. Today we're bringing you an 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:26.560 episode of Weird House from the fault. This episode originally 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:30.720 published February fourth, twenty twenty two, and it's on the 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.680 nineteen forty six horror films starring Peter Lorie The Beast 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:37.879 with Five Fingers. Let's jump right in. 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:44.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.960 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:57.440 and this is Joe McCormick, and we're going back to 0:00:57.480 --> 0:00:59.880 the nineteen forties on this one. This is going to 0:00:59.920 --> 0:01:02.800 be only the second time we have ventured into the forties. 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:06.679 The last time was for the film Doctor Cyclops, and 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:10.240 this time we're going in for the Beast with Five 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:13.080 Fingers from nineteen forty six. 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.920 Both of these films that we've done from the forties 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:21.479 have unusually good special effects for their time. So Doctor 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:24.840 Cyclops the premise was there's a mad scientist who gets 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:26.480 a bunch of people into his house and then he 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:28.920 shrinks them down to about the size of mice, and 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:31.720 they have to find a way to defeat the giant. 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.960 But this movie is a killer Severed Hand movie, so 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:39.680 you might wonder, well, I don't know how good could 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:43.440 the killer Severed Hand effects be in nineteen forty six, 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:45.160 but I gotta say really good. 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:48.520 Yeah, the special effects in this film are pretty great, 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:53.160 especially for the time period. They're very effective. You know, 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:55.400 if you're looking for the flaws, I'm sure you you 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:58.240 can find them. You know, that's not an actual disembodied 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:02.120 hand crawling across the floor. You know, if you're looking 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:03.520 for a whole lot of blood, you're not going to 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:05.520 find it in a nineteen forty six picture for the 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:09.359 most part. But it's there's still some wonderfully creepy scenes, 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:14.880 especially when you have the wonderfully weird actor Peter Lourie 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:17.959 interacting with it. Because if anybody can act opposite a 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:21.880 rubber hand and make you believe it, it's going to 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:23.320 be somebody of Laurie's caliber. 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:26.079 That's right. This movie has two meat spiders in it. 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:28.520 One is the hand and the other is Peter Lourie. 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.600 That's right. Now. One of the fun things about this 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:34.560 is that I believe we actually mentioned this title though 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.120 neither of us had seen it yet, when we covered 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.440 the nineteen thirty five film Mad Love, which that one 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:46.280 was just wonderful film starring Peter Laurie Francis Dre Colin Clive, 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:52.440 and that film featured hand transplants and supernatural paranoid ideas 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.320 of what that might mean. As we discussed at that point, 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.680 hand transplants were science fiction. It had not been pulled 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:01.720 off yet, and this was a film that you know, 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:05.200 went wild with the idea, well, if if I received 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:07.359 the hands of a knife thrower, then am I now 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:09.239 a knife thrower? You know where? 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:12.079 Yes you are? 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.840 Yeah, undoubtedly, And it was well utilized in the plot. 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.720 Now that tradition storytelling tradition goes back at least as 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.720 far as the nineteen twenty four film The Hands of 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.600 Orloc which is based on the same source material as 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.360 Mad Love. But The Beast with Five Fingers takes things 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:35.240 in a related but different direction entirely, and that is, 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.240 if you if you cut a hand off of somebody, 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:42.840 if you remove the hand, does something of the original 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:46.360 humans will survive in that hand. Could that hand have 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.560 a life of its own? Could it crawl around and 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:53.760 manipulate things? Could it strangle people? And so forth, which 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.280 I guess is related to some of the anxieties and 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.920 sci fi ponderings that you find and works like Mad Love, 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:04.360 but this takes it into an even more ridiculous and 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.240 special effects powered level of monster movie. 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.880 Well, there are actually even more similarities than we've already mentioned, 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:14.560 because if you'll recall in Mad Love and the story 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:16.640 was based on which I guess is the hands of Orlock. 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.760 Orlock is not the name of Peter Lourie's character. Peter 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:23.839 Lourie is the is the sort of is the mad 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:28.480 surgeon who does the hand transplant. And Orlock is the 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.240 name of Colin Clive's character, who is a concert pianist. 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:36.440 He's like, these hands have great talent, and his hands 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:40.360 are badly damaged in a train accident. Colin Clive is 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:42.080 riding in a train car with a man who has 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:44.560 a large sausage with him and I think also like 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:48.479 a dog in a picanic basket. Yeah, but I think 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:51.920 that the train crashes, his hands are harmed and his 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:54.719 beloved comes to Peter Laurie and is like, save my 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.200 you know, She's like, save my. My fiance is brilliant hands. 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.279 And the way that Peter where he saves his brilliant 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:05.360 hands is by transplanting the hands of a murderer onto 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:08.479 this concert pianist. And he finds, you know, okay, it 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.400 works his hands, he can use them, but now he's 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:13.560 not really good at the piano anymore. And instead what 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:15.719 he's really good at is wielding a knife. 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.279 Yeah, he's an expert knife thrower. 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:22.239 Now, now this movie is also got some weird hand 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:26.560 magic going on, also involving somebody who's a concert pianist. 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:30.800 It does. Yeah, And this one is also notable for being, 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.680 I believe, unless I'm missing something like, this is the 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:37.800 film that starts at all with crawling hand movies. It's 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:41.360 easy to take crawling hands for granted now because you know, 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:44.640 it's a well established trope crawling hands or in the 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.320 Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual, you know that sort of thing. 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:51.440 Bottom's family, Yeah, Adam's family is a big one. The 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.840 thing now, in that I was looking it up, the 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:58.160 thing dates back I think to nineteen fifty four. I 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:00.000 think that's when it first popped up in the Charles 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:04.200 Adams comic of the Adams Family, but of course it 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:07.320 famously appeared in the TV series. It of course factored 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:11.039 into the two major nineteen nineties films of the Adams Family, 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:12.960 as well as the third I want to say made 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:17.640 for TV or direct to video sequel. But one thing 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:19.600 I was surprised at in that is that the thing 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.080 in those films, all three of those, was played by 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:26.400 Canadian actor and magician Christopher Hart. Which it makes sense 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:28.359 if you want to you want somebody to play a 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:30.480 disembodied hand, you get a slighter hand, guy, you get 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:31.160 a magician in. 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.960 There, right, Yeah, the graceful movements and the well, I 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.640 mean the magicians are practiced at doing a twirl of 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.159 the fingers right to kind of yeah, dazzle you while 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:44.400 they misdirect your attention. Now, now, Rob, I noticed, though 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:47.359 you keep calling it the thing. I think it's just thing. 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:49.279 I think thing is its name. 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:54.560 I think you're correct on that thing, not the thing. Now, 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.560 in terms of other crawling hand features that came out 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.760 after the Beast with five fingers, you have the nineteen 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:05.400 sixty three's the crawling hand you have a segment of 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.760 the Amicus film Doctor Terror's House of Horrors from sixty five, 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:12.400 starring Christopher Lee. There's another film from Amicus titled and 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:15.040 Now the Screaming Starts, and that has Peter Cushing and 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:18.240 Herbert Lawm in it. There's also a Mexican horror film 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.640 that I believe I've watched part of called Demonoid Messenger 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:26.040 of Death Crawling Hand movie. There's also famously The Hand 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.880 from nineteen eighty one as well, directed by Oliver Stone 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.720 and starring Michael Caine. Have you seen this one, Joe. 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.120 I haven't, but I've seen it described as a remake 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:36.640 of the movie we're talking about today, The Beast with 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:38.440 Five Fingers. I don't know if that's accurate. 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:41.000 I don't remember being angry. This is a film that 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:43.560 I think I watched it on A and E, like 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:45.320 on a Sunday afternoon back in the day. It was 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.840 one that was in rotation there and I remember it 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:51.520 being it seemed to be like more of a serious 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.680 psychological treatment. But no, no, I take that back. I 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.520 think there was really a crawling hand in it. But yeah, 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:01.720 Michael can good in it, and he's like a comic 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:07.560 book artist. It's weirdly named Joe Lansdale. I think John Lansdale, 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.080 John Lansdale, Okay, yeah, But every time I look it up, 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:12.000 I'm like, is that supposed to be a reference to 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:13.720 Joe Lansdale. I don't know. 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:16.440 Okay, so that, but in that one, is it also 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:19.080 like his hand has such talent in it, and then 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:21.640 it becomes severed from his body and goes and does 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:22.640 its own business. 0:08:23.080 --> 0:08:26.000 Yeah, yeah, but then it comes back. But yeah, there's 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.240 also a lot of, like you know, Michael Caine, dark 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.440 psychological stuff going on in that one. Now, if you're 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:34.920 an Evil Dead fan, The Evil Dead two from eighty 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.559 seven famously features some crawling hand shenanigans. 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.920 Right, Ash's hand becomes possessed by a demon and he 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:43.880 has to chop it off and then put it under 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:46.560 a bucket which he weighs down with a stack of books, 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.560 the top of which is a farewell to arms yuck. 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.679 Yuh oh. Yeah, And that's the thing, right It kind 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:54.959 of I guess increases. It's so well known at this 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.520 point that it's increasingly about gags, So I think there's 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:02.480 a crawling hand gage at least in nineteen ninety three's Leprechaun. 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.680 And then there is the comedy horror film from nineteen 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:13.200 ninety nine titled Idle Hands. I vaguely remember seeing this one. 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:18.400 I want to say it has either either Gary Busey's 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:21.000 son or that other guy. Is it Matthew Lillard or 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:22.040 Jake Busey. 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:24.880 I don't think either one. I've really seen it. I 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:25.560 think I saw this. 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:27.880 I with that money that one of those two guys 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:28.680 is in this movie. 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:31.480 It's got Devin Salwa. He's the main guy. He plays 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:35.000 a stoner kid. It has Jessica Alba, who was all 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:38.360 the rage at the time. It has Seth Green and 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.360 another guy who plays you know, they play a couple 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:48.600 of stoner buddies. I definitely don't recall Jake Busey or 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:50.360 who's the other one. 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:52.640 You said, what Matthew Lillard? 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.640 No, No, there are no lil Ardians in the film 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:56.000 at all. 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.560 Huh. Well, there you go, and in my mind I 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.559 see them clearly running around with a disembodied hand. 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:05.640 Well, I can see why you'd think that, because it 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:09.079 has some of the same sheen or grime to it 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:14.400 as say hackers, like it's going for a alternative stoner 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.880 cool kid in the late nineties sort of thing. I 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.760 guess Hackers was probably earlier, maybe early nineties, I'm not sure, 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:24.960 but anyway, it's not quite at that level. It's more 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.040 of a low brow, stoner horror comedy. A lot of 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:29.640 the jokes are about marijuana. 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:34.719 Okay, Interestingly enough, Christopher Hart, who played Thing in those 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.600 three Adams Family movies, also plays the hand in Idle Hands. 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:40.319 It's the best performance in the film. 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.600 Oh and then also this guy goes on to play 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.120 a hand in an episode of TV's Angel as well. 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.880 I never watched Angel. That's the Buffy spin off. 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:52.440 This the Buffy spinoff. Yeah, but yeah, I wasn't familiar 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.760 with Christopher Hart beforehand, but this was beforehand. This was 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.880 the guy for Disembodied Hands for pretty much an entire decade. 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:02.720 So I guess my main point here is that, yeah, 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:08.040 this is this film sets a trend. This film introduces 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.560 what would become a trope, and so it's interesting to 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.199 go back and watch it and think, well, audience had 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.640 audiences had never seen this before. It's old hat to 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.320 anybody who lived during the age of the Adams Family, 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:23.760 you know, but at the time, like these scenes where 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:27.360 you finally see the beast with five fingers, which is 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:32.280 a hand, is a disembodied hand. It's pretty shocking, especially 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:33.640 since the effects are so good. 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:35.920 Yeah, I agree. Now, I know we set this up 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.920 at the beginning sort of in contrast with Mad Love, 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.360 and I would not say that this movie is anywhere 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.920 near as great as Mad Love, But on its own terms, 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:50.720 it is a fun and silly and pretty inventive little 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:53.680 horror thriller with good special effects for the time. 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:54.920 Yeah. Absolutely. 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:57.600 Now at this point, do we even need to give 0:11:57.600 --> 0:11:59.880 an elevator pitch. We've sort of already done it. It's like, 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.000 what if there were a murder mystery in which the 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:06.480 hand of the killer wasn't attached to a wrist. Yes, 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:12.240 let's hear some trailer audio. 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:20.600 A piano, long, silent mysteriously plays again its weird an 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:23.840 ominous chords, filling up a deviled house with stark terror. 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.840 A concerto of death, a cobra music of a dead 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:31.080 man played by a hand that returned from the grave 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.360 to wreak vengeance on his betrayals, marking each for a 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:39.640 murder as it strikes within human power. A horrifying monster 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.680 that takes its evil commands from beyond they cannot return 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.400 to the tomb till it completes its mission of destruction. 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:26.800 Now, one thing that's worth noting about this film too, 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:29.760 and I'm not sure. I'm not sure if this was 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:32.480 ever even possible, but it seems like if you were 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:35.960 watching this with absolutely no spoilers and having never seen 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.240 the trailer or a poster or anything, the big reveal 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:41.280 that the hand is crawling around on its own might 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:44.720 have been more impactful because they kind of set it 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:48.240 up like, what's happening, what's you know? And the first 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:50.760 time you see the hand, you can't tell that it 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:52.760 has that it's not attached to a body. 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.280 Right, somebody will appear in the crack of a door 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.600 and then a hand reaches around from behind them and 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.080 grabs their throat and starts choking them. But for all 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:05.640 you know, the hand could in fact be attached to 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:07.960 a wrist. It could just be somebody killing this guy. 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.280 And then there's actually some question later on in the 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:13.840 movie about whether it is. In fact, it probably is, 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.320 the movie implies, but it doesn't make it clear even 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:19.440 when you see the hand, that the hand is not 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:22.640 just a regular hand that's running around on its own. 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:24.640 You don't get to that until probably two thirds of 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:25.440 the way through the movie. 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:27.720 Yeah, all right, Well, let's talk about some of the 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:32.680 people involved in this one. The director is Robert Floret, 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:37.480 who lived nineteen hundred through nineteen seventy nine. Industrial strength 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:41.560 French American director who worked from the twenties through the sixties. 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:44.800 One of these guys where you check out his filmography 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.960 and it's just this long list of one hundred and 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.000 eighteen credits. He's just absolutely cranking out pictures during the 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:55.880 nineteen thirties especially, he's hustling. Yeah. Now, his early career 0:14:55.920 --> 0:15:01.560 was apparently more about avant garde expressionist, but he increasingly 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.320 became just like a cinematic workhouse and also apparently the 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:08.680 very dependable filmmaker someone of the studios could turn to 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.960 to really put the picture together, you know, put it out, 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:12.480 you know, under budget and on time. 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:13.720 That kind of great. Yeah. 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:18.040 Now, from a purely horror standpoint, he's perhaps best known 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:21.760 for Murders in the Room Morgue from nineteen thirty two, 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.800 based on the Edgar Allen post story and starring Hungarian 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.200 American film legend Bella Lagosi, oh as well as ape 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.560 Suit legend Charles Gemora, who we've mentioned on the show before. 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.840 Another Float film of note is The Face Behind the Mask, 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.440 which was one I was also looking at potentially to 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.560 cover in this episode, but went with The Beast instead. 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:45.560 This was a film that starred Peter Laurie as an 0:15:45.560 --> 0:15:49.840 immigrant watchmaker who's who you know. It comes in with 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:51.680 a lot of optimism about what he can make of 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.600 himself in America, but then he's kind of chewed up 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:58.160 by dark American realities and he becomes a disfigured crime 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:03.200 boss instead. And then also of interesting note, I was 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:06.480 not familiar with this film, but Florat directed a noir 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:10.600 film titled Daughter of Shanghai from thirty seven, which featured 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:15.240 a female Chinese American lead in the form of Anime Wong, 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.960 as well as Korean American actor Philip On, and this 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:22.200 was in some ways progressive for the time, as Asian 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.800 leads were often played by white actors, and in fact, 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.840 in the same year, Wong lost out the lead role 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:33.880 of a Chinese character in The Good Earth. So again 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.280 I haven't seen Daughter of Shanghai, but it seems to 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:42.720 be noteworthy in film history now. I think Wong typically 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:47.320 played sort of dragon lady stereotypes, but still it was 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:49.800 apparently something of the time to see her at the 0:16:49.840 --> 0:16:52.480 top in the lead, even in a noir sort of 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.960 crime thriller type of a film. Daughter of Shanghai, by 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.920 the way, also features a young Anthony Quinn popping up 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.960 in a lesser role. So, like I said, Flore busted 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.240 out a bunch of films, directed a lot of TV 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.639 later on during his career, and his last credit is 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:11.399 actually an episode of the original Outer Limits series, so 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:14.720 one titled Moonstone, and he also did three different Twilight 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:15.560 Zone episodes. 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.400 Oh, you're the Outer Limits connoisseur, ho's Moonstone. 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:24.040 Well, I'm not a connoisseur as much of the original series. 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.560 I'm more of a connoisseur or growing connoisseur of the 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:31.800 nineteen nineties Outer Limits revival. So I don't think i've 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.840 seen Moonstone. I've seen some of the original Outer Limits episodes, 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.919 and of course they're great, but I haven't seen that one. Likewise, 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.160 I looked up the three Twilight Zone episodes he did, 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:44.160 and I faintly remember one of them, but I don't 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:48.280 think any of them are like the really famous Twilight 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:49.080 Zone episodes. 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:51.720 You like the era of the Outer Limits that sometimes 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:53.919 has CGI that looks like it's from one of the 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:55.200 Wing Commander games. 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.440 It really does. I mean sometimes there's also, to be fair, 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:02.919 there's a lot of great practical alien makeup and some 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.120 cool set design as they figure out like how can 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:10.200 we on a budget create a different alien or futuristic 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:13.960 hallway for every episode of this series. But yeah, there's 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.160 some truly awful CGI at times as well. 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:17.399 I love it now. 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:19.960 The screenplay for this film was written by a pretty 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.439 famous name, Kurtzodmack, who lived nineteen oh two through the 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:27.280 year two thousand. It's a German born novelist and screenwriter 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:31.840 who left Germany first for Britain and then for the 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:37.639 US due to concerns overrising anti Semitism under the Nazis. 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:42.520 His family was Jewish. His German output was already pretty 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:46.520 successful prior to this, however, including the sci fi film 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:49.080 I was looking at this one FP one doesn't answer, 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:51.960 which seems to be about sort of a sort of 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:55.920 an air aircraft carrier base, like a not a ship, 0:18:55.960 --> 0:18:58.960 but like some sort of like a large like at 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.119 the time sci fi aircraft platform in the middle of 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:05.960 the ocean. Once he left for the UK. He did 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.000 British war thrillers, and he did some comedies, but then 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:12.679 he started striking it big with some horror screenplays. He 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.399 did the screenplay for the nineteen forty one film The 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.720 Invisible Man Returns that has Vincent Price in it ooh, 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:23.879 and then he wrote an original screenplay for nineteen forty 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:27.560 one's The wolf Man, starring Claude Rains, Bell Lagosi and 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:29.960 lom Cheney Junior. He went on from there to write 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:34.359 a ton of screenplays, including Frankenstein Meets Wolfman from forty three, 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.760 I Walked with a Zombie from forty three, Son of 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:41.400 Dracula from You Guessed At nineteen forty three, and then 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.800 House of Frankenstein from nineteen forty four, along with just 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:46.480 a lot of other stuff. But those are some of 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.560 the titles that jumped out of me. He also wrote 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.920 the nineteen forty two sci fi novel Donovan's Brain, which 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:56.080 has been adapted three times. I don't think he was 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.680 personally involved in any of the adaptations, but it was 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:00.960 adapted in nineteen forty four as the Lady in the 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:03.920 Monster in nineteen fifty three Is Donovan's Brain, and in 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:06.480 nineteen sixty two as the Brain. 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:09.280 Donovan's Brain is a great poster. Have you seen it? 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:13.760 Yeah? Yeah, with a In fact, I think the Brain 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:17.680 from sixty two also has a pretty snazzy poster. But yeah, 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:19.760 I'm all about a good brain film. 0:20:19.960 --> 0:20:21.879 I love the colors. It's got these big bars of 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:25.680 yellow and then these creepy eyes and a green background. 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:28.040 And it says a dead man's brain in a hidden 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.880 laboratory told him to kill, kill, kill. 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:34.600 So you can see why this was the perfect guy 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:38.440 to adapt The Beast with Five Fingers. And I say 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:42.280 adapt because it's based on a short story by William 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.600 Fryar Harvey, who lived eighteen eighty five through nineteen thirty seven, 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.480 I think, professionally known as W. F. Harvey, a British 0:20:49.520 --> 0:21:01.760 writer who wrote horror and ghost stories. All right, let's 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.960 get into the cast of this film. The credited lead 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:10.760 is not Peter Loriie. It is Robert Alda playing Oh 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:12.840 let's see in the In the credits is listed as 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:16.080 Conrad Ryler. But that's not what people call him, right, No. 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.359 It's all over the place. The promotional materials for this 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:23.520 movie call him Conrad Riyler. But then characters on screen 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.080 call him Bruce Conrad. So it sounds like his name 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:30.680 was changed in like the shooting script, but then something 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:33.280 else ended up using a name from an earlier draft 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:33.760 or something. 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:37.359 That's that's crazy, because yeah, it's still listed on IMDb 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:40.800 as Conrad Ryler. So it's a sort of disservice to 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:43.600 I mean, they couldn't have possibly realized this that one 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:46.720 day people would be watching your film going to the 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:50.360 you know, this official listing of character names to keep 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:52.240 track of what's going on, and if you don't have 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.280 the right names there, we're just going to be lost. 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:56.760 Well, whether it's his first name or his last name, 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.000 he is Conrad, so we can at least stick with that. 0:21:59.359 --> 0:21:59.600 Yes. 0:21:59.840 --> 0:21:59.879 So. 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:04.760 Alda was born nineteen fourteen died nineteen eighty six. Originally 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:07.800 a vaudeville singing dance guy who made his way up 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:11.919 through the worlds of radio and burless theater before landing 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:15.680 a role in nineteen forty five's Rhapsody in Blue playing 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:19.919 George Gershwin. Huh yeah, so by the time Beast with 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:22.760 Five Fingers comes out, this Beast is only his fourth 0:22:22.800 --> 0:22:23.320 film role. 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:27.080 Okay, well, got he's got a very optimistic youthful energy 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:30.320 in this Yeah, yeah, calm confidence. 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:33.240 Yeah, he's got a good I'm not sure what you 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:35.960 call the style of mustache that he has. 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:38.080