I Watch Films: The Devil's Hand

 

The Devil’s Hand (1961)

Rick Turner (Robert Alda) has dreams of a woman in a negligee (this is 1961 so she’s covered from neck down) and can’t sleep. Taking a walk at night he passes a doll shop with a doll that’s an exact replica of the woman. He goes back the next day with his girlfriend Donna (Ariadna Welter), only for the owner Frank Lamont (Neil Hamilton) to claim that Rick commissioned this doll. It’s for Bianca Milan (Linda Christian) who Rick has not met in the waking world.

Also there is a doll that looks like Donna. After refusing to sell it Frank takes it out the back where there is spooky occult cave (wall hangings, open flames, statue of Buddha, altar etc). He stabs the doll with a pin. Donna collapses outside, is taken to the hospital with heart problems.

Rick decides to track down Bianca. He collects the doll – paid for by him according to Frank – and goes to her apartment. She’s expecting him – in her negligee, and they become lovers. She then tells him she sent the visions thanks to her membership of the cult of Gamba, The Great Devil God. They go to a meeting in the spooky occult cave behind the doll shop. Frank is the high priest. They also have a drummer; the cult has a variety of members.

They have a weird ceremony in which a woman is initiated; she lies down while a wheel of knives descends from the ceiling (controlled by pedals behind Frank’s altar). If she’s a true believer she’ll be unharmed; thankfully the knife that strikes her is rubber. A man takes pictures secretly.

Now the turn as Rick realises that the doll of Donna has a pin in it. Having been neglecting her – enchanted by Bianca – he tells her things will improve and sneaks into the doll shop at night, moving the pin out so it is between arm and body. Mary, a cultist who is a nurse at the hospital tells Frank about the visit and her recovery. Already concerned that the man who took the picture is an undercover reporter, he calls a meeting in which all the occult nonsense put out earlier in the film will pay off.

So here’s the question. Is Gamba, the Great Devil God, a syncretic creation of various racist stereotypes and cheap horror novel ideas, supposed to be real? They have the whole sympathetic doll magic and thought transference going on. But Frank uses tricks and informers. The film is not interested in this, mixing fraud and sorcery, the idea of a man seduced away by a beautiful, magical enchantress, only to discover that his original (pure) love was harmed by her.

Watch This: Short film of occult tortures and attractions
Don’t Watch This: Flimsy, silly, doesn’t understand it’s own mythology