"The Crawling Hand" Review

 

by Daniel White

What do you get when you mix teenage angst with a failed space mission? The Crawling Hand, a 1963 horror/sci fi flick that brings new meaning to the word inept.

Working out of a Florida space center that looks like it doubles for a used car dealership, Peter Breck is Steve Curan, a frustrated aeronautics employee. Along with co-workers Allison Hayes (Attack of the 50 Foot Woman) and Kent Taylor, Steve is on edge - they've just lost their second astronaut. Where are these Interplanetary pilots disappearing to, and why are they so spooked? ("Do you read me... someone please come in... push the red... kill kill!") Three thousand miles away in a sleepy California town, two teenagers discover a severed hand while swimming. Could it belong to the latest flyguy gone bye bye? You betcha!

Misdirected by Herbert L. Strock (who also had a "hand" in scribbling the less than stellar screenplay), The Crawling Hand is bad, but not "so bad it's good" bad. Nope, my friends, it's just plain, god awful lousy. It does, however, contain a pretty interesting cast. Besides Breck and Hayes, Rod Lauren appears as Paul, the young man who found the hand (really, an arm) while frolicking in the surf with his sweetie.

Looking like Frankie Avalon, Lauren does a shoddy James Dean impersonation. I'd say it's jaw-droppingly wretched but it doesn't deserve that much attention from anyone's jaw. His main squeeze is played by Sirry Steffen, a former Miss Iceland. I have always wanted to see what a Miss Iceland looked like. Thank you, Miss Steffen, for satisfying my curiosity. Now, hop onto the nearest ice floe, go back to where you came from, and bother us no more.

Hollywood has-beens Arline Judge and Richard Arlen are here as well. Hopefully, but I doubt it, they picked up a sizable paycheck. And the pitted, fetid cherry on the top of this curdled sundae? The Skipper, from Gilligan's Island! Alan Hale is the local sheriff who's just itchin' to put a bullet in our tortured anti-hero's head. Dammit, Skipper, if you'd done that 10 minutes into this stink-fest you would have saved us all from having to endure it.

It premiered in Hartford, Connecticut, my home state in 1963, the year I was born. But don't think for a minute that grants this misconceived fright flick a place of endearment in my heart. Nothing doing folks. I don't care if my dear, departed mother pawned the family heirlooms to finance this piece of dog doo-doo. Burn it, bury it, or behead it, I never want to see The Crawling Hand again. Available on YouTube, for those who are feeling masochistic.