MisterWhiplash I wonder if I could make it through The Crawling Hand if it weren't for the Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys along for the proverbial ride. It's a wonder if this could be made entertaining at all... then again in 1987 in Evil Dead 2 one would see what mayhem and fun could be had with a demonic hand. But in the case of this film, the plot is thin save for some "watch out for, um, radiation fall-out from space" scare-messages, and the characters are practically non-existent types. Or rather, they do exist, but you wonder where the character parts 'went'.But there are some moments of hilarity, even without the commentary from MST3K There's the guy on the TV screen out in space who is first affected by the radiation (he really goes so far into banana-land that he makes Shatner look like Olivier) and whose hand becomes THE hand that lands on the beach and attacks those by lunging for the throat. The way the hand lunges from its point of attack is also quite funny, how it creeps up and jumps off in such a manner that you're all but waiting to see the other hand that through that hand at the actor's throat! Some of the wooden acting is fun too; Peter Breck, who the same year this came out legitimately wowed me with his turn in Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor, is given little do but act and talk serious at a, (haha), crawling hand that when it attacks someone they get up and, uh, become the hand themselves! I'm sure that when this came out some of the scare scenes were possibly scary. Today it can't be helped that it's all very tacky, and despite an attempt at a shocking climax at a junkyard, where cats are the ones who really can get the most credit in doing the most damage, its a tacky sci-fi B movie in a mostly dull kind of way. But, as mentioned, MST3K comes in to save the day if one is so inclined to watch with it (i.e. any reference to 'smoking').

mrb1980 Q: What do you get when you bring together this cast: Alan Hale, Jr. (Skipper from "Gilligan's Island"), Kent Taylor (1950s-60s "B" star who once worked with Mae West), Peter Breck (volatile actor from "The Big Valley"), Allison Hayes (title role in "Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman"), Rod Lauren (wannabe teen idol from the early 1960s with almost no acting talent), Arline Judge (aging, washed-up actress from the 1930s and 1940s), and Richard Arlen (old, tired, and faded early 1930s leading man)? A: You get "The Crawling Hand", and what an enjoyable mess it is. Directed by 50s sci-fi veteran Herbert L. Strock, this movie will either leave you dumbstruck or rolling on the floor with laughter.I've commented on "Disembodied Head Movies", so I'll write about this "Disembodied Hand Movie". Breck and Taylor are project managers for a "Space Operations" moon mission that goes bad when the astronaut gets very wacky and grows black makeup around his eyes. For safety reasons, Taylor has to blow up the spaceship and the astronaut, causing great anxiety to Arlen, who plays the head of "Space Operations". Breck spends the tense final moments of the mission yelling, throwing things, and smoking cigarettes. The explosion of the spacecraft results in the astronaut's disconnected hand landing on a California beach, where it is discovered by college student Lauren and his girlfriend (Sirry Steffen). I've always thought the hand looks pretty good, considering it has experienced a spacecraft explosion and fiery re-entry into the earth's atmosphere; it isn't even singed! Lauren, being a naïve kid, takes the hand home instead of notifying authorities. In short order, the hand strangles Lauren's landlady (Judge, who has one of the funniest death scenes ever), and tries to strangle Lauren, transferring the hand's "strangler curse"—or whatever—to him. Breck and Taylor arrive in town, and spend the rest of the film battling the local Sheriff (Hale) while Lauren periodically goes crazy. The hand meets its ultimate demise in a salvage yard…where it's promptly eaten by stray cats.Although there have been other "Disembodied Hand" movies ("Hands of a Stranger" comes to mind), this one is in a league of its own. Space travel, romance, grisly murders, bad acting, bad makeup, very dated technology, goofy "pop" music, a once-in-a-lifetime cast, and unintentionally funny situations make this film quite an experience. Breck, Hale, and Arlen all overact so outrageously that it's hard to decide which one is worst…while Taylor and Hayes are both quite good. The best scene has two really dopey paramedics loading Judge's body on a gurney before they search the poor lady's house for a cold can of beer! It isn't something to watch if you're looking for a good movie, but if you like early 1960s campy sci-fi/horror, it's a must-see.

xredgarnetx THE CRAWLING HAND looks like something straight out of the 1950s, when TV was beginning to upset the Hollywood applecart, forcing the major studios to look for new angles and gimmicks (Todd A-O, Cinemascope, VistaVision, Cinerama, 3-D, stereo sound, and big-budget color remakes of old films) and small indie directors like Ed Wood were having a field day turning out tons of drive-in drivel. HAND is about a dead astronauts's severed hand seeking revenge on the living. Yowsa! How's that for a plot! In some scenes, you can actually spot the uncredited actor whose hand is doing the crawling. Considering HAND is from 1963, I am a little surprised as drive-ins by then were on the wane and no self-respecting movie house would have been likely to show this. It is a terrible, wooden movie, with poverty-row sets, little or no action, a virtually nonexistent script, bad music, uncorrected sound and so on. But ... for true film buffs, we get to see a very young Peter "Big Valley" Breck, veteran leading men Kent Taylor and Tris "King of the Rocketmen" Coffin, a pre-"Gilligan's Island" Alan Hale and the alluring Alison "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman" Hayes. A rather unusual cast for a no-budget movie. I guess they were taking what they could get in the dawning era of color TV and the collapse of the studio system.

thehardyboyz2043 (Possible spoilers) not many people may know this but "The Crawling Hand" was an early MST3K episode from about '89, I think. Personally, I don't feel this was anywhere near being the worst movie they ever did, but it was still pretty bad. The story consists of an astronaut (whose lines consist mainly of "Push the red button" and "Kill" during which he sounds like a William Shatner wannabe) who is blown up and his remains, but mainly his hand are discovered later on a beach by a frolicking couple, a Swedish chick who has to read cue cards and a James Dean clone. For some reason the "James" guy goes on a killing or a dutch rub spree for any one whose seen the film all the while to NASA scientists (I think) and a dumpy sheriff (Alan Hale Jr., whose surprised)are trying to track him down. It's not really a very good movie, though the MST version was quite funny, for an early episode.