HandsofaStranger

Hands of a Stranger (1962)

An ambitious surgeon tries to save the genius of a piano player in this low budget “thriller” from the 1960s. Vernon Paris is an up and coming classical piano player who is terribly injured in a car accident that forces the amputation of his hands. But the surgeon that amputates his hands is experimenting with transplants and attaches the hands of a John Doe patient on the pianists’ arms. But after discovering what has happened Vernon’s personality changes. Is it because of the mental trauma or is there some residual behavior from the hand’s former owner? Either way Vernon decides to take revenge on those that ruined his life, including the surgeons responsible for the transplants.

This could have been and interesting movie if it weren’t so talky. Seriously I’ve never seen a movie with so much dialogue that honestly doesn’t amount to much of anything. While the dialogue is well written it seems that the characters talk for the sake of talking. This makes for a very slow and boring movie. Not only that but in spite of all the dialogue and long discussions between the characters we still never find out who the donor was and if that had anything to do with Vernon’s violent behavior. Heck the audience doesn’t even get to hear from Vernon what is going on in his head. Though we get to hear people go on and on about creating beauty, which doesn’t thrill me. The movie isn’t made worse by the performances of the cast, but it isn’t helped either. There are so many melodramatic scenes in the movie where the characters end up yelling at each other without any real emotion that the whole film comes off as flat. This doesn’t help the already slow pace and only makes the movie even less interesting.

This entire movie is shot on screen stages. You can tell because the movie makes heavy use of rear projection to give the illusion of being outside in the city. But it is pretty clear that the actors are just sitting in front of a screen with footage being projected on it. Mostly because very little effort is made to match the scale, which makes for some interesting scenes! It is also clear that the stages they had to use were limited. Now normally this means that the filmmakers will redress the sets, but here they don’t even do that. I had no idea that an operating room could be used as a conference room as well as somewhere for the staff to hang out.

So it might seem I’m being a bit hard on the movie and I guess that I am. But I can forgive quite a bit when the movie is entertaining. When it isn’t I find myself getting picky. Hands of a Stranger isn’t good, which is why I’m being so picky. I recommend that every one stay far away from this waste of time. If you must check it out then the good news is that it can be had on the cheap from Mill Creek Entertainment. Check them out at www.millcreekent.com/ for more information.

½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer