a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

An elderly alcoholic called Charlie Taplow (Harold Scott) who claimed to have had his right hand amputated in exchange for £500 is found murdered. Two more deaths follow and Inspector Munyard (Ronald Leigh- Hunt) links the crimes to three ex-servicemen; Corporal George Adams (Bryan Coleman), Private Mike Brodie (Reed de Rouen) and Captain Roberts (Derek Bond) who served together in Burma during the Second World War. They got captured and, whilst being interrogated by a sadistic prison officer at a Japanese POW, they had their right hands severed for refusing to talk. Yet, it appears that one of them may have cracked under pressure and, as a result, was spared the fate of his fellow men. Could the murders be a revenge plot?Grisly semi-horror story that marked a change of pace for b-pic specialists Butcher's Film Service who usually made run of the mill crime dramas. It has some effective moments such as a reasonably passable Burma-set prologue in which the interrogation and amputation scenes are reasonably unsettling and carry some tension. There is a good suspense sequence set on board a London-Norwich express train in which a little girl with a doll she calls Belinda innocently gives the killer away to his travelling companion by noticing that he has half a button missing from his raincoat. The other half was found at the scene of a murder by the latter who is the victim's brother: "Would you like Belinda to sew one on for you?" asks the child before her mother tells her not to pester the gentleman before leaving the compartment and unknowingly leaving his fellow passenger's life in danger.It is competently acted and the most notable performers are Ronald Leigh-Hunt as the Scotland Yard man, Reed de Rouen and former 1950's matinée idol Derek Bond as the villain. Director Henry Cass directs with brisk paced efficiency, but the whole thing is let down by a confused narrative - either due to a poor script or a botched editing job. This seriously hampers what is otherwise an above average film for its type. It was produced by Bill Luckwell, a former publicist, who made seventeen b-pics in ten years!

I'm still giving it '7' for sheer weirdness more than anything else. As 'Malcolm' the reviewer of 26.5.2013 states, it mysteriously starts off with a caption of: 'Burma, 1946'. I wondered where that was going as strangely, it looks like WW2 - with British commandos being tortured by the Japanese. The latter threaten to cut off the hands of the soldiers unless they tittle-tattle their military secrets. Two don't and have their hands cut off. One, Derek Bond, alias 'Crawshaw', looks more nervy and it's left there, before going to the present day (well, 1960). It seems like a tramp has had his hand cut off in the present day by Crawshaw's bent, or lent on brother, who on police investigation by Ronald Leigh-hunt, is trying to get to the bottom of that. Brodie, one of the soldiers who had his hand cut off ends up dead after Crawshaw has visited him in the meanwhile. This can be a vague story, but as one other reviewer says perhaps some credit should go to 'Run for Your Wife' Ray Cooney who wrote and stars in it. It 'does' seem as if Crawshaw who retained his hand by not telling the Japanese soldiers the secrets, may have tried to ease his conscience by 'producing' a hand to Brodie and the other chum to show it wasn't him, or that his secret was out in the open as a sort of traitor. The cops eventually catch up with Crawshaw when he visits the other officer who wouldn't blab (and one-handless of course), Crawshaw runs off and you can guess what happens - let's say he may as well have held back in WW2. Strange, but loved the London locations. So much so (is this sad?) I looked them up and went to see them - quite interesting, most hadn't changed apart from one side of the road churned up for a council estate. Worth watching for the weird factor as well. (Okay, I admit, I've recorded it for my collection of British B-flicks!)

I was expecting this to be a horror film of the disembodied hand variety (as would be the case with its 1981 namesake, which, incidentally, I watched fairly recently); instead, it's an eccentric, cheap but surprisingly tolerable Edgar Wallace-type policier which, for its modest length (running barely over an hour), turns out to have an unnecessarily complex plot – wherein myriad characters (many of them having lost the titular body part) are involved with organ-trafficking, impersonation, suicide, murder and the like! The plot has a WWII Burma-set prologue in which three British soldiers are captured by the Japanese; the latter seek to learn the position and number of the opposing Allied forces and, to this end, two of the prisoners suffer the loss of a hand. Then, we cut to the present day, where it transpires that the third had turned cowardly – so his companions' sacrifice was in vain – and, rather than having the maimed duo seeking the traitor out for revenge, it is he who's still persecuting them! The finale, however, sees the villain getting his just desserts in a most ironic (yet totally predictable) fashion.Investigating the weird goings-on are a couple of Scotland Yard detectives; bafflingly, one of the most frustrating aspects to this intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying film is the peculiar fact that a lot of the male actors here boast strikingly similar physiognomies and, so as not to get hopelessly confused, one has to keep reminding himself of just who the various characters are and what they represent!

Great start!And yeah - lots of talk, and no action - which was the curse of British B movies of the time. But you've got to pay attention to the dialogue this time, or you won't work out what the motivation is. In other words, Ray Cooney's dialogue is a bit cleverer than the norm at the time.Nasty shots (for 1961) - one severed hand (natch!)Who's the murderer, then? Bloody Hell - Derek Bond has the lead role on the posters, and doesn't appear after the MEANINGFUL prologue until well into the movie.Ray Cooney wrote the screenplay, and went on to script several extremely successful comedy/farce plays. This seems to have been his only foray into nasty stuff.He also appears in the movie. Several rewinds suggest that he's the main Cop's second hand( heh, heh!) man.(The credits aren't helpful)I had to hunt this movie down after many years. Hard to find. Is it good? Well - all I can say is that, had I the chance to view it at the time, I may not have been disappointed. Very English, shoestring budget. Today?It's an hour long, you've got to pay attention to throw-away dialogue - but it's much better than those Butcher Film movies that send you to sleep after 5 minutes and -Amazing for 1960: Bad language! In the prologue, a character calls his WW2 captors "Dirty Bastards!" Believe me, STRONG stuff for the time.BUT - this is NOT a lost classic. Tape it on late night TV if it ever shows, but don't pay what I did to give you this review.GEISTERZUG