User Reviews

Possibly my comments won't fit with other viewers' comments as I saw this film in 1942 when it was issued, and I was 7 years old.

As a 7 year old I found it scary, interesting, and sometimes comic.

I realize 62 years later the film would probably not frighten me now in the least. I think the story was original. Milton Parsons I remember well. His funereal manner was fascinating and his appearance is vivid in my memory. I remember him as a good little cameo actor from the 1940s, as well as one unfortunate, Rondo Hatton, who was not an actor but appeared as a monster due to his acromegaly. Bring back the films of the 1940s and early 1950s!

There was a time when every major studio turned out "B" movies, 60 minute quickies to fill a double bill. "The Hidden Hand," for example. It features a group of credible, little-known actors (aside from Craig Stevens who had not yet played Peter Gunn) and keeps the budget slim by using only one set, a mysterious mansion where members of a greedy family gather to be knocked off. Why are there a pair of homicidal hands behind the painting in the living room? How come the carpet nearby hides a quick dip in a watery grave?? And how did the mistress of the manor get out of the crypt in which she was interred to plot the demise of her house guests? At least, the cast includes Milton Parsons who is either the funniest or scariest butler to escape an insane asylum. In short, a surprisingly entertaining throwback.

"The Hidden Hand" is an interesting twist on the familiar old dark house thrillers. But, like so many similar films in this genre in this era, it has Willie Best on hand...as if there was some unwritten law that he be on hand in each of these films!!

The film begins with a madman escaping from the sanitarium. It seems that John Channing (Milton Parsons) was assisted in his escape by his sister, Lorinda (Cecil Cunningham). She seems pretty unconcerned about her murderous brother's antics and wants his help in throwing an interesting party. She has invited her relatives there and she knows most of them are real swine....and she and John are going to make sure the deserving ones don't leave the house alive!

There are many nice twists in the film...but I don't want to discuss them because it would spoil the film. Overall, it's fun and quite entertaining...and well worth seeing.

The Hidden Hand is such an odd little movie, it only stands at around an hour and deals with serious subjects. Yet at the same time it's rife with comedy leaving the whole movie feeling muddled yet oddly entertaining.

It tells the story of a crazed killer who returns home and becomes embroiled in a plot to put a womans greedy siblings through their paces as they all want her dead to claim the inheritance.

Though many of the characters aren't great we do have some who stand out and steal the entire movie. Ontop of that it looks amazing for it's time and delivers both chills and genuine belly laughs.

It's hard to categorize The Hidden Hand due to it's extremes in content but I can't take away from it's quality.

Fun, gripping and fascinating.

The Good:

Milton Parsons & Willie Best

Fantastic story

Great execution

Looks amazing for 1942

The Bad:

Tad short

Weirdly constructed

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

The Hidden Hand is what would happen if Edgar Alan Poe made a movie with Disney!

This is no "Halloween", but I really enjoyed this movie..not for the scares, but for the laughs. It was a great way to pass a couple of hours on a lazy Sunday afternoon in the middle of winter. Willie Best was really entertaining. The other characters did just enough and although it was very campy by today's standards, I can't fault any of them. At the end when the policemen all left the house satisfied that they had solved the crime (but left all the bodies in the hidden basement well), I laughed right out loud. I found this movie on the Turner Classic movie channel, where I watch most of the black and white movies I enjoy. If you just look at it as pure entertainment, you'd be sure to enjoy it.

Lorinda Channing helps her insane brother escape from an asylum. She intends to use him to frighten her other relatives who she feels are only out to get her money. Intending to leave the majority of her fortune to her secretary, Mary Winfield, Lorinda is convinced she'll also need protection from her crazy family. But can you really trust an homicidal maniac bent on killing again?

I'm not really sure why The Hidden Hand isn't better known. It's one of those Warner "B" films that seems to have unfairly dropped into relative obscurity. I'm not sure I was even aware of its existence until last night. Too bad, because it's a ton of fun. It's got so much going for it. First, Milton Parsons plays mad brother John perfectly. He expertly alternates between hilarious and downright creepy. To me, it looked as if Parsons was having the time of his life. His name might not be familiar, but he's a character actor that I'm sure most fans of 1940s-era films have run across. Second is Willie Best. I always feel it necessary to defend enjoying Best, so I'll do so again. While I do not appreciate the stereotypical and sometimes degrading roles he was given, he's as good a comedian as you'll find. HIs timing is impeccable. The missing sandwich bit near the beginning of the film had me just about laughing out loud. In fact, he steals just about every scene he appears in. Finally, as I've said countless times, I always enjoy an old, dark house movie. This one comes complete with secret passages, moving panels, and other surprises. Add to that a madcap script, dead bodies that appear and disappear, and an atmospheric thunderstorm and you've got a winner in my books.

One last thing, being a Warner Brothers' film - even a "B' film - it all looks great. Director Benjamin Stoloff and cinematographer Henry Sharp certainly knew what they were doing.

7/10

This is an example of the Dark and Stormy Night motif. A maniac from an insane asylum escapes and makes his way to the house of his wealthy sister. Once there, she enlists him in playing a nasty prank on several heirs to her fortune. She uses a drug to make her look dead with the idea of being revived later. This will force the vultures to attack one another. Meanwhile, the nut case brother begins a little killing spree. The down side is the black servant who is treated like dirt. Of course, he is a mass of stereotypes, typical of the time period.

Breakout at the insane asylum: No one knows how the dangerous inmate escaped, but while the sheriff and warden stand discussing it, the escapee sneaks into the sheriff's rumble seat and waits to be driven off the grounds.

The dim sheriff heads over to the mansion where the escaped killer's sister lives. He tells Aunt Lorinda to watch out for her crazy brother but she says she's not afraid of him--and we soon discover that it was she who actually arranged the escape. She needs her brother's help: All their greedy relatives are coming over and she is going to test them to decide if she should leave them her money. She assigns the crazy brother to pose as a butler and they wait for visitors.

Milton Parsons is a little creepy but mostly just goofy as the insane brother. Cecil Cunningham is enthusiastically unbalanced as rich old Aunt Lorinda. Her scheme to test the relatives seems promising and includes an odd sequence in which she takes a sleeping potion to convince everyone that she is already dead. Unfortunately the relatives are generally a bit bland, as are the handsome young lawyer and secretary (Craig Stevens and Elizabeth Fraser) who strike up a romance while also trying to investigate. Willie Best is stuck as usual playing the timid servant who is scared of everything.

It's a passable plot even if there's nothing real original about it. Overall, unfortunately, it just doesn't quite work....It's not really funny enough to be a comedy or scary enough to be a thriller. This Warner Bros. B production looks polished but it might have worked better as one of those unabashedly amateurish bargain basement PRC productions.

A somewhat warped old lady, played by Cecil Cunningham, yes that's the actress' name, has a will giving the bulk of her estate to her personal secretary, in order that her greedy and selfish family not get their grubby hands on her money. Her brother has just escaped from an insane asylum and heads for home. Such begins a creepy and very morbid film, as bodies start dropping like flies. Willie Best is on hand as the chauffeur who is giving his usual wide-eyed and jumpy performance at all things spooky. Future "Peter Gunn" star Craig Stevens costars and Milton Parsons gives a particularly chilling and unforgettable performance as the crazy escapee. With hidden money, trapdoors, crevices, and clues to find it all, this film has everything you'd want for a macabre night of thrills and chills. A very complicated and intricate plot keeps the viewer glued to their seat and holding on for dear life. This film delivers like none other for a dark, rainy night. Just turn a light on afterwards, and watch your back....

An escapee from an institution returns home to the house of his sister, who arranged his escape. Gathering her family together, she intends using her brother to kill them.

While this is a relatively entertaining B film, it is ultimately neither a comedy or a thriller although it has elements of both. Milton Parsons is sinister as the brother with the underused and underrated Willie Best supplying the comedy.

Hidden Hand, The (1942)

** (out of 4)

Yet another "old dark house" mystery but this one here lets you know who the killers are and lets you in on their secret plan. A rich old woman helps her crazy brother escape from an insane asylum so that he can pretend to be her butler while she invites over various members of her family who are just waiting for her to die so that they can get her money. The old lady fakes her death with the help of her doctor so that she can see how the family members will act once she's gone and then more bodies start to pile up. The plot to THE HIDDEN HAND is at least something fresh but sadly the direction is so lacking that you can't help but feel the movie is twice as long as its 63-minute running time. I really enjoy watching "B" movies but this one here really took me by surprise because it seemed the screenwriter at least wanted to try something different and separate this from other entries in the genre but sadly the director simply didn't have any idea how to inject any life into the picture. There are countless scenes that just drag along including one very boring one where the family members just whisper to one another how they wish the old woman would just drop dead. Of course, none of them ever stop to think that someone listening might not be too thrilled with what they're saying. Another problem is that none of the characters are all that likable including the good girl (Elisabeth Fraser) who we know is going to get the money. Fraser is pretty good in her role even though the screenplay doesn't require too much. The same is true for Julie Bishop and Craig Stevens in their roles. The film stealer is without question Milton Parsons who plays the psychotic brother. His performance is so wacky and over-the-top that you can't help but have fun with his character. The way he's unshaven, hair as wild as can be and the way he stalks around the house is just downright fun and you can't help but wish the character had a stronger movie around him. We even get Willie Best doing his typical "scared servant" bit. THE HIDDEN HAND is one of a countless number of films that tried to fool viewers with various twists and turns. There really isn't anything ground-breaking here but the weak direction really keeps it from being better.

Maybe I was just in a bad mood. I sat through it because I had just had my eyes dilated and couldn't do anything much except watch tv. Maybe there was some other reason. I don't pretend to be an avid fan of political correctness.

But the countless scenes of Willie Best literally shaking in his shoes when no one else was afraid of the so-called ghost really got to me for their blatant racism.

If there had been other Black characters in the movie, it would have been different. Best would just have been a cowardly individual. And those certainly come in all colors.

But because he was the only Black in the movie, and because we had to sit through him quaking over and over again, it really got to me.

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.

Lorinda channing (cecil cunningham) has helped her crazy brother (milton parsons) escape the sanitarium, and promises to look after him at home. What she really wants is to use the brother john to scare off the rest of her family, who she thinks is after her money. Lorinda even lays out a plan (in a very loud voice) to fake her own death to find out what the family will do! Then the strange accidents start happening.... and pretty soon, the bodies start piling up. Even the pet raven isn't safe. It's a corny horror flick... but lorinda really just needed a hobby. She could have been helping the war effort, instead of wasting all that time worrying about what her family thought of her. It's all pretty silly. From the play by Rufus King. Directed by Ben Stoloff; he had done the amazing Soup to Nuts in 1930.

This is the classic dark and stormy night film from the forties. A madman escapes from a sanitarium and goes to the house of his rich sister. She enlists him to punish a group of would be heirs to her fortune. The brother lurks around the house, killing some of the people, and the woman stages her own death. Of course, we are dealing with vultures and they are going to go after one another. Naturally, their is one pretty young woman and her straight shooting boyfriend. There is also the obligatory racist portrayal of a black man who goes bananas any time something weird happens. He is the black stereotype of the era and this is disturbing. He is dismissed out of hand in every setting, but, then, he is portrayed as total idiot. It's well done with some real stars and the music works quite well. Ultimately, it is campy and played for laughs.

This is a movie that I didn't know about until looking through Letterboxd for horror from 1942. I'll be honest, that is about the extent of what I knew about this one coming in as I wanted to come in as blind as possible. I did find it interesting that this is a Warner Brothers production from the opening credits.

Synopsis: Peter Thorne (Craig Stevens) is a young attorney who works for an eccentric old woman, Lorinda Channing (Cecil Cunningham). She uses her insane brother, John Channing (Milton Parsons) to frighten her other relatives because they're after her money. Further complications when another murderer arrives on the scene and plants the blame on John.

That synopsis is a bit misleading. We start at a mental hospital where John is being held. There is a siren as he's escaped. Sheriff Selby (Wade Boteler) and his deputy Mike Mullins (George Guhl) look for him. They don't realize that John snuck into their trunk to hitch a ride to the Channing estate.

It is there that they admitted by the butler, Stuart Holmes, and meet Eustis (Willie Best) who is a chauffeur. He made sandwiches for the head of the house, Lorinda. We see a hand come out from behind a painting to take them. This shocks Eustis who thinks it is the police officers that took them. He goes to make more.

After they leave, we see that Lorinda knows her brother has returned. She helped him escape and comes up with a plan to punish her family members. She cannot leave her money to John due to him being believed to a killer. So instead, she wants to leave her money to her secretary, Mary Winfield (Elisabeth Fraser). Lorinda comes up with a plan by inviting her nephews and their wives to the estate. This includes Walter (Roland Drew) and his wife Rita (Julie Bishop). There is also Horace (Tom Stevenson) who is married to Estelle (Ruth Ford). The last is Dr. Lawrence (Frank Wilcox) who shows up with Eleanor Stevens (Marian Hall), who is his nurse. He is called in when Lorinda is almost killed and needs to be checked on. I get the idea that he might be seeing Eleanor romantically as well.

Now as the synopsis states, Lorinda comes up with a plan. She no longer wants her money and wants to give it to Mary at once. She calls her lawyer there, who is Peter Throne. He and Mary have feelings, but he is volunteering to go to war. Lorinda also comes up with a plan with Dr. Lawrence. He gives her an injection to make it look like she passed away. With her 'dead', all the nephews, along with their wives, go about what they can to get the will changed before morning. The doctor sees his chance and changes his mind in helping her 'recover'. That adds to the free-for-all. There is also John to consider here as well.

That is where I'll leave my recap as well as introducing the characters. We get a classic set up for the era. There are elements of the 'old dark house' as there are secret passageways. It seems to me that the only people who know about them are John and Lorinda. They use them to their advantage in setting things up. This is also a murder mystery on top of it as other members of the family are picked off. Where this movie ends up was something I wasn't fully expecting, so I'll give credit there. I'm also not shocked to see that this started out as a stage play. It does feel like that.

With those opening thoughts out there, this is an odd story structure. We know that John is insane. What I find interesting with him is that it feels like he had a mental break. He understands things around him but lacks impulse control. I'd even say that his sister isn't too far off from there. Hers comes from bitterness though. I'd say that she's a sociopath, or at least close to it. We know the set up with them. This tries to play as a murder mystery though after she 'dies'. She was put into a coma. We see that Dr. Lawrence changes his mind on helping her though. Other members of the family turn up dead. The easy answer is John, since we know how this started. The mystery comes from if there is someone else in the family picking off others to get the money. Mary is a target, but things happen to save her.

With that fleshed out, I like that there is a potential house of murderers. This feels like an Agathe Christie murder mystery. The problem that I have is they decided to go comedy here. There are musical cues that I didn't like. Having someone like Eustis for comedic effect is good. Best is great at that, even though I don't necessarily like how they direct him to be. I wish this would have been straight mystery with a bit of drama and horror elements. It is even light on the last ones, but not necessarily for the era. This could be a bit darker with the number of potential killers. I was disappointed there and it struggled to keep my attention because of it.

Since I've leaned into a couple things, let me go to the acting. I've already said that I like Best. He's an actor I've seen in a few things and they are similar. I'm glad he was working during this era so I won't harp beyond that. He does make me laugh. It is interesting that Stevens is created as our lead since we don't meet him until the end of the first act. He's solid. Fraser is cute and I like that she's one of the only good people here. Bishop, Wilcox, Ford, Drew, Stevenson and Hall are all good as the villains. What is interesting there is that they're all money hungry. They're all arrogant because of it. Other than that, I did like Cunningham and Parsons as the two mysterious members of the family. I'll also give credit to Kam Tong as the cook, Mallo.

Finally, will be the filmmaking. The cinematography is where I'll start and it is fine. They don't do anything too out of the ordinary. I will give credit though to certain shots that highlight the 'old dark house' stuff. We get close-ups of eyes that are looking out through hide-away spots. The setting is also good. I'm a sucker for movies set in houses like this. There aren't a lot in the way of effects, but it doesn't need them. I've already said about the soundtrack. The normal music is fine. I'm just not a fan of the musical cues that are whimsical.

In conclusion, this movie is falling in the vein of the 'old dark house' murder mysteries that were popular for the era. I like that this starts with John escaping from a mental hospital, but he might not be our villain. This becomes a murder mystery starting with Lorinda and others are killed from there. Not everything is at is seems though. The filmmaking is fine, aside from what they decided to do with music and comedy. The acting is good though. The setting is as well. This movie is just a bit slow and not doing enough new. I will admit that I didn't see where the ending was going so, I'll give credit there.

My Rating: 6 out of 10.

Boy oh boy, this was a howler with some of the worst over-acting you will ever see, and to me the highlight was the appearance of Willie Best as the chauffeur while the rest of the cast was abysmal in their acting talents. Made on a shoestring, and looking it, every little diabolical cliché was used, with the "insane" brother and sister planning on removing all the "hangers-on" after their fortune. Seems longer than it was, but I did see it on late night TV, and maybe I was overtired. If it comes your way, and you decide to have a look, at least stay there for the scene where our two "stars" jointly break into maniacal laughter - the best part of the movie.

John Channing (Milton Parsons) is an insane-asylum escapee. In her efforts to protect her brother from the authorities, John's sister Lorinda (Cecil Cunningham) opens the door for a series of grisly murders. Peter Thorne (Craig Stevens) and Mary Winfield (Elizabeth Fraser) try to stop John before he kills again.

Quite thrilling and creepy and fast-paced programmer with the classic old dark house setting but this one has a little comedy. It's fun though with secret passages, will readings, sliding panels and escaped mental patients, and this is quite atmospheric and suspenseful. There's a neat twist at the end, and excellent performances by Cecil Cunningham as the crotchety rich old woman and Milton Parsons as the deranged killer.

Corny low budget horror film about a rich old woman who staves off her relatives seeing inheritance by using her creepy insane brother to act as the butler, who then frightens (and possibly murders) them off. The brother is played by Craig Stevens, who's later play the ultra cool Peter Gunn, but here he's looking very much like Riff Raff from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Overall, it's a dumb mystery that's not at all scary. The film is very stagey (there was basically one set) and is overly talky. At times, this film felt like an SCTV parody of this type of bad 1940s horror picture. No real reason to watch this one outside of camp value.

Milton Parsons was a great character actor of the 1940's, and appeared in many films, especially the Charlie Chan series.

This film is probably his BIGGEST role; altho, for some odd reason he is billed 8th (He's one of the top 3 characters).

He plays an escaped maniac from a mental institution, who helps his not-so-sane-either sister kill off the greedy members of their family, who want the "hidden treasure".

An excellent film, with many plot twists, secret panels, and great scared-reaction comedy by Willie Best.

Gathering her relatives together at her house, a woman's intent on celebrating her wealth with them is interrupted by a series of murders forcing them to find the killer before he strikes them again.

This here was a rather decent enough murder/mystery rather than a true horror effort. This is mostly undone by the fact that there's the opening escape that showcases the killer from the beginning which really tends to lower that factory considerably as this one features such an illogically-staged sequence putting him in full-view for the entire scene doesn't make the fear of him all that common here which is pretty much the whole purpose here. That could've easily been done by framing the escape without showing him in order to keep the mystery going, but rather the fact that the rest of the movie takes place with him out in the open along with the rest of the family is where this one does tend to show itself off in that regard as a fine comedic horror effort as there's some really decent slapstick scenes here of the murder attempts on her life that really are quite enjoyable. The falling flower pot and the poisoning do make for quite silly scenes but are played off as genuine enough to prolong the mystery well enough for them to be considered goofy, silly fun long enough to hold this up nicely enough in carrying the first half here. The second half plays like a true old- school haunted house mystery with the secret passages, disappearing rooms and investigations into the events here that makes for quite a fun time here and really makes for quite a fun time in generating some genuine laughs and enough twists in the final moments to make it memorable though still somewhat troubled.

Rated Unrated/PG: Violence.

"The Hidden Hand" is one of the Warner Brothers combination comedy, mystery and horror movies made in the early 1940s. This one is quite good as a mystery, even with the early introduction of the mad John Channing. Naturally, everyone thinks he is the culprit here. There are several murders. Nothing grotesque, but enough to convince one that the Channing family may all be crazy.

The comedy is provided by Willie Best who was a very good African-American actor. He was in many films during Hollywood's golden era, but died of cancer at age 48 in 1962. The screenplay is just fair, and the mystery is the best part of the film. The hidden hand is actually part of the comedy, because it frequent comes out of the wall from behind a picture and swipes sandwiches or turns off lights, etc.

The cast doesn't include any prominent actors of the day, and none of these roles are more than standard. The mystery aspect keeps one interested to see how the escaped asylum inmate, mad John Channing will be caught. But it has some surprises toward the end. A fair film with enough different twists to keep one interested.