I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This 1962 movie felt like a cross between a soap opera a made-for-TV movie or Perry Mason episode in its production values and musical score, but that's true of many movies of this era. Despite the apparent low budget, the movie provides intriguing if not compelling drama as we watch the world-class pianist in a classic man vs. himself struggle after the replacement of his hands following an accident. What happened to James Noah? He has features of Elvis and Jack Lord and I thought he did a fine job in this role. His acting career, such as it was, went on hold for 20+ years after 1966. Odd. I thought the pacing was unnecessarily slow in some places, but again, that's somewhat characteristic of the era. This film was close to a 7 for me but didn't quite have the it factor to get it there. Still, a solid film.

All too familiar old story : guy's hands have made him a successful pianist, guy is in a car-crash, guy wakes up to discover he has lost his hands, guy loses his selfish girlfriend, op doc transplants someone else's hands (a stranger's perhaps?), guy's sister falls for the op doc, guy discovers they were the hands of a murderer, guy loses the ability to play piano, guy resents op doc, guy's sister also resents op doc, guy's sister breaks up with op doc, guy goes a bit mad, guy kills a few folk himself, guy tries to kill op doc in revenge, guy taken out in a meaningless and futile ending, we all feel sorry for guy's sister.Even though this movie is slow and very dialogue heavy, I find it pretty entertaining. Rather than terrible performances or "over-acting" as someone put it, I find the animated acting styles suit the mood and tone of the movie. There are few action sequences so I feel the cast compensate for this to some degree. The camera work, directing and lighting deserve honourable plaudits here; any sound problems I'm fairly forgiving with.The premise and plot of the movie may be pretty daft but it is delivered with enough earnestness to make this halfway convincing. Overall - pretty watchable time killer.

Hands of a Stranger (1962) ** (out of 4) Low-budget remake of THE HANDS OF ORLAC from the one and only Allied Artists. As in the numerous earlier versions, a concert pianist (James Stapleton) loses his hands in a car wreck so a doctor (Paul Lukather) gives him the hands of someone else. Soon the pianist begins to lose his mind and goes around killing several people. Is it the new hands or is something else going on? HANDS OF A STRANGER really doesn't improve on any of the earlier versions of this story and in the end the film is just way too talky and doesn't feature enough energy or excitement. For a horror film from 1962 I was a little surprised to see how much it was lacking in regards to the horror elements. The death scenes are all rather tame and there were a few times where you couldn't even tell that he killed the people until later in the film when it was mentioned that they were dead. The biggest problem, however, is the fact that there's just way too much talking going on and it just makes the film drag along to a point where you just grow tired of everything going on. The performances are also all over the place but I thought Lukather and Stapleton were good in their parts. The one thing I did like is how the film never really made it clear if the hands were doing the killing or if it was the actual person just mentally unstable from not being a concert pianist anymore. Still, with such better films out there it's hard to recommend this to anyone other than those who want to see every version.

This has potential but is filled with unanswered questions. Modern medicine being what it is, I don't know how anyone could do such a thing. When dealing with new science, we have a set of rules we need to adhere to to claim credibility. How does this doctor get the power he has, and how does he manage to survive professionally. Is there a story coming after this. The pianist/ victim is entitled to feel as he does. He sees himself as a true victim and doesn't want to live. This would be true without the transplant. So is all this anger and furor over his accident or over what the doctor and his compatriots did. We don't know. Did the hands reject the situation and begin to act on their own, or is it in the psyche of the central figure. This could have been done in a much more subdued atmosphere. I can't believe the doctor and the sister took the young man to that crazy amusement part. He's the one that wanted patience and you take the guy to a bizarre setting such as this. The story moves to its logical conclusion with very predictable ease. It just could have been better with a more intriguing script.