Hands Of A Stranger

Is there anything worse than a pianist with no hands? How about a pianist with… SOMEONE ELSE’S HANDS!! A stranger’s hands to be exact. Where else are you going to get a title like Hands of a Stranger?

So a big-shot pianist, Vernon, get his hands mangled in a traffic accident. It just so happens that another anonymous fellow has recently been laid out on a slab. A think-out-of-the box surgeon whacks off the dead mystery guy’s hands and gives them to the pianist Futurama style (see “The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings” season 4 – I can’t believe they STOLE from Futurama 100 years before it was even made! I kid, of course, if it steals from anything it is “The Hands Of Orlac”).

Uppity Vernon doesn’t take to this idea very well. As he struggles to accept himself terrible things begin happening around him. Some synopses make it sound like the hands are doing the evil deeds with a mind of their own, and the movie tries to work in a premise for that possibility although it’s about as strong as Mr. Burns (who fails to crush a paper cup).

I see it as Vernon’s broken psyche leading him to do evil things rather than demon hands that can override the conscious mind and do whatever the previous hand owner might have done with them. Still, you can make your own call about all that.

One big problem I have with the movie is that the dead guy that unwittingly gives up his hands remains unidentified. So the doctor is just going to whack off the hands of whomever? As driven to succeed as he is I don’t think he would disrespect a corpse that could have very well turned out to be someone important or connected to someone who could have ended the doctor's career. I think it would have been more believable to have the guy be a gangster of some sort or maybe a botched police sting so they needed to cover up the death meaning no one would see or care about the mangled body if the doctor needed to borrow a few parts. Either that or they could have made the doctor more of a mad scientists type: more concerned with the advancements of science than being a respectable surgeon.

Another problem is that the hysteria over the surgery is overblown. The acting in general isn’t bad, but some moments like this hysteria go over the top. That particular reaction and the surgery itself are drawn out far too long. Adding a coverup plot like I mentioned earlier would have provided more plot material without stretching out the slow parts so much.

The piano playing during the course of the movie is pretty nice. Despite being mostly a metalhead I do like that kind of stuff (I just like it to be more classical than pop). Sometimes these long musical numbers in non-musical movies can get tedious, but I rather enjoyed the music in this one.

MORALITY:

There is a bit of violence though very little of it is shown on screen. Even the drawn out surgery and nature of things like the mangled hands don’t show much more than blood-stained sheets.

There is no strong language, nudity, or sex. It's pretty typical of old black and white thrillers.

SPIRITUALITY:

Is it possible for something to dominate our wills and take us from being decent law-abiding goody-goods to psychotic sinners? That seems to be a common fear probably born from the stories of demonic possession from the Bible since many believers accept those accounts as literal.

I can't tell you what crimes a demon may be able to force you to do, but if your heart belongs to God you have no reason to fear.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

The decent acting and piano music keep this from being an awful movie though it’s largely unimpressive. It’s just so slow without enough interesting plot developments.

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