HANDS OF A STRANGER (1962)

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*


Newton Arnold spent most of his film-career as a second-unit director, but did manage to both write and direct one flick, HANDS OF A STRANGER. Admittedly it's not a totally original work, in that the basic plot was borrowed, without credit, from the novel THE HANDS OF ORLAC, which had been adapted to film three times previously.

Like most versions of ORLAC, the main character of STRANGER is a concert pianist-- named "Vernon Paris" this time-- who loses both hands in an accident. In most iterations, a surgeon successfully transplants the hands of a dead man onto the wrists of the pianist; however, the hands were those of a murderer, and the pianist becomes increasingly distressed about the potential of his once cultivated hands to commit acts of violence.

STRANGER does depart from the template, though, for no one in the film ever knows the identity of the hands' owner. The audience sees how the unnamed man meets his demise. He's first seen walking along a dark street with a briefcase. A car with two men rolls into view, and the man flees from it, clearly expecting trouble. The men in the car shoot him down, get out, search him and take something from his pockets, and leave. The last thing the stranger does is to clutch at a lamp-post before he dies, and it's later said that the citizens who find him must pry his hands from the post. This is all the audience ever knows about the stranger: that he's somehow involved in criminal activity and that he has strong hands.

Cut to surgeon Gil Harding. He's an idealist who hates to see death claim its due, in that he fulminates angrily about the loss of a patient. (He also waxes very poetic, as do almost all of Arnold's main characters do, which makes STRANGER an odd experience, more like watching a stage play than a movie.) That same night, Gil also gets to perform an autopsy on The Stranger, and reports his findings to police lieutenant Syms, who makes odd comments like calling fingerprints "pictures that tell me all I want to know." Syms, a weary cynic, is impressed with Gil's idealism, though neither of them expect to have further contact.

That same night, Vernon Paris finishes a concert performance to great acclaim. Vernon's character is initially introduced by his sister Dina in conversation with his manager George. Both of them admire Vernon, and George makes a remark about Dina finding a new relationship, to which she asks him if George is "implying a scandalous relationship between me and my brother." In later scenes the script expands by saying that Dina and Vernon bonded strongly after the death of their parents, and though I've not read the original Renard novel. I suspect that this aspect of the script is original to STRANGER.

Vernon is an idealist about aesthetics the way Gil is an idealist about medicine, but the pianist is also somewhat more narcissistic, enjoying the adulation of his sister, his manager, and of many women with whom he's casually romantic. He takes a taxi alone, but the cabbie recognizes Vernon. The driver regales Vernon with stories about the guy's piano-playing son, and because he's distracted, the cabbie crashes the car. Unconscious, Vernon is taken to the same hospital where Gil works. Manager George pleads with Gil to save the pianist's hands, but they've been utterly ruined by the car-crash. And it's at that point that Gil Harding puts his Frankenstein-hat on, removing the hands of the stranger and transplanting them to Vernon. (Since this operation is unsanctioned by the hospital, it gives Lt. Syms an excuse to keep tabs on the results of the operation.)

Because no one ever knows anything about the donor, neither the aggrieved pianist or his distressed sister are concerned about Vernon having a murderer's hands. In fact, Gil is the only one who brings up the idea that the owner might have been a "psychotic," when he says that "psychotic tendencies don't transfer themselves mystically." And this seems to be author Arnold's position, too, for at no point is it suggested that the hands function as anything but transplanted organs. All the problems stem from Vernon's inability to accept the loss of his dexterous digits, and like most psychos, he begins to see other people as his victimizers: the cabbie who caused the crash (and his son), his most recent girlfriend, and eventually the doctors who performed the operation. Even inanimate objects take on sinister meaning, as when Vernon visits a carnival and becomes stressed at the sight of clowns, bumper cars, a player piano and a funhouse mirror that exaggerates Vernon's alien hands.  His excuse is another poetic rumination: "the only real enemies the world has are the enemies of beauty."

As Vernon falls, though, Dina rises, for she falls in love with Gil, the man who tried to give her brother a second chance at life. Vernon doesn't seem overly jealous of Dina's divided loyalties, which isn't surprising since any sibling fixation seems to be on her side. He only resents another volley against his ego, which leads to a final confrontation between Vernon and his perceived enemies.

It's not a great film by any means. But even Ed Wood never gave a policeman an eyebrow-raising line about having an "erotic respect for perfection."