Neat little horror number from Warner Bros., another reading-of-the-will/inheritance/ murder tale, but with a diabolical twist: a disembodied piano-playing hand is the killer. Yikes! His showpiece? Brahms’ Left Hand Only piano arrangement of Bach’s D Minor Chaconne for solo violin.* No classic (though scripter Curt Siodmak of WOLF MAN fame knows this game as well as anyone), but loaded with third-string talent like director Robert Florey & lenser Wesley Anderson over-achieving. Nifty F/X, too. That is one creepy crawling hand in 1890s Italy where partially paralyzed pianist Victor Francen gathers his friends at his villa to sign a new will. There’s music arranger/antiques con man Robert Alda; nurse/companion Andrea King; astrological researcher Peter Lorre; and the town lawyer. Then, after Francen dies from unnatural causes, they are joined by an avaricious father/son pair of relatives and, of course, local police chief J. Carroll Naish to investigate. But with Francen lying in the mausoleum, who is that playing Bach on the grand piano in the middle of the night? Next question, who killed the lawyer? And two more questions: who tried to strangle Lorre and who attacked the venal son? Nothing in here haunts in the manner of a prime Universal Horror pic, but plenty slick & fun.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *That’s the legendary, self-destructive Ervin Nyiregyhazi playing on the soundtrack. Famous & mentally unstable, he all but disappeared from the classical music scene only to be rediscovered by a Columbia record producer in the ‘70s and given a splashy comeback album with some of the wildest classical piano ever put on LP.
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