Review of Hands of a Stranger

"Hands of a Stranger" is a version of the same story told in Peter Lorre's 1930's classic "Mad Love" (and also in "The Hands of Orlac, but I haven't seen that one yet), only the visual flair and suspenseful atmosphere of that film have been removed here and replaced with nothing but … melodramatic speeches! Every character in this film, whether he or she plays a leading part or just a supportive one, simply looooooooooooves to speech. Even the simplest "yes" or "no" questions are answered with incredibly overlong, tedious, irritating and besides-the-point nagging and driveling. Needless to say this badly affects the amusement factor as well as the pacing, and "Hands of the Stranger" indeed quickly became one of the dullest & laughably pretentious thrillers I had the displeasure of watching recently. The story opens with a random guy getting shot by anonymous men from a driving car. The identity of this man, the reasons why he must die and – equally important – who killed him are all questions that unprofessionally remain open throughout the entire movie. All we learn about him is that he has strong and beautiful hands. Whenever someone informs about his identity or background, the standard response is that the investigation isn't finished yet. Nevertheless, the span of the story is approximately 4 to 5 months, so imagine how slow the CSI departments worked back in the 1960's. Anyway, the hands of the mysteriously assassinated stranger's hands are amputated and sewn on to the arms of an acclaimed pianist who lost his in a terrible car accident. Define irony; the guy walks out of an accident without a single scratch on his body yet his hands are entirely mangled and unrecognizable. He, Vernon Paris, subsequently has to learn to accept his new hands but instead of that the force him to kill. At least that's the explanation given in the film, but I'm convinced the script exclusively suggest that his mind went berserk. "Hands of a Stranger" is a nearly unendurably stupid film with very few aspects that are worth mentioning. Personally, I counted two remotely interesting sequences, namely one when Paris confronts the cab driver responsible for the accident and another one set at a carnival. The rest of the film is miserably boring, with endless lame dialogs, implausible characters (the Doctor looks like a rock star and the cop acts like a stand-up comedian), a total shortage of horrific moments, hideous photography, uninspired directing and just plain retarded plot twists.