It's rare, but very occasionally when browsing around You Tube aimlessly, you can stumble upon freely available titles you never heard about before. And then, although even more of a rare event, the title in question turns out to be a very pleasant surprise and an overall extremely enjoyable gem. I still can't believe what a fun little movie "The Hidden Hand" is. In fact, it's so much fun that I honestly can't comprehend why it's completely unknown and unloved. "The Hidden Hand" is particularly fast-paced for a low-budgeted early 40s flick, and full of awesomely deranged characters and imaginative death sequences.
The plot is sort of a crossbreed between the contemporary popular "haunted house" horror (with thunderstorms & creepy old houses full of boobytraps) and "maniacal killer on the loose" thrillers (with not just one but two crazies running around). A wicked and eccentric old lady secretly helps to escape her psychopathic brother from the asylum and lures him back to the family estate, just so that he can help accomplish her diabolical plan of wiping out all the greedy relatives that are after the inheritance. Things get out of control because someone is apparently also trying to kill the old lady and her secretary, and because the deranged brother cannot resist killing random household girls.
This tremendously amusing comedy/horror-whodunit effectively spoofs the genre classics from the 30s, but forcefully increases the body count and portrays the typically crazy characters even crazier. Especially the maniacal brother John Channing (played by Milton Parsons) is fantastic. He's a mixture between Boris Karloff in "The Old Dark House" and Lurch the Butler from "The Adams Family". Come to think of it, I wouldn't be too surprised if Lurch was partially inspired by him. Furthermore, there's tomfoolery involving suspended animation, clues for hidden treasures, rotating walls, secretive peek-holes through painting, and a pet raven named Mr. Poe. How can you NOT instantly add "The Hiding Hand" to your watch-list, I wonder? The only annoying thing is the stereotypical role of Willie Best as the exaggeratedly scared and panicky black servant, but that seemed to be considered hilarious in the late thirties and forties.
The plot is sort of a crossbreed between the contemporary popular "haunted house" horror (with thunderstorms & creepy old houses full of boobytraps) and "maniacal killer on the loose" thrillers (with not just one but two crazies running around). A wicked and eccentric old lady secretly helps to escape her psychopathic brother from the asylum and lures him back to the family estate, just so that he can help accomplish her diabolical plan of wiping out all the greedy relatives that are after the inheritance. Things get out of control because someone is apparently also trying to kill the old lady and her secretary, and because the deranged brother cannot resist killing random household girls.
This tremendously amusing comedy/horror-whodunit effectively spoofs the genre classics from the 30s, but forcefully increases the body count and portrays the typically crazy characters even crazier. Especially the maniacal brother John Channing (played by Milton Parsons) is fantastic. He's a mixture between Boris Karloff in "The Old Dark House" and Lurch the Butler from "The Adams Family". Come to think of it, I wouldn't be too surprised if Lurch was partially inspired by him. Furthermore, there's tomfoolery involving suspended animation, clues for hidden treasures, rotating walls, secretive peek-holes through painting, and a pet raven named Mr. Poe. How can you NOT instantly add "The Hiding Hand" to your watch-list, I wonder? The only annoying thing is the stereotypical role of Willie Best as the exaggeratedly scared and panicky black servant, but that seemed to be considered hilarious in the late thirties and forties.