• Max Steiner riffing off of and using Bach music and a tremendous performance by Peter Lorre are the show here and the reason the film squeaks into the archives
  • A great crane shot down into the big set piece entrance of the gothic castle with the piano
  • Lorre can do insanity and unease unlike any other actor
  • Gothic- big castle, shadowy, heavy on the music, candle lighting
  • The narrative has problems- it just makes huge leaps about how an unknown (previously in the narrative) cousin knows Lorre and how Lorre has been leaching off of his cousin for years
  • A great shot of the three men’s faces aligned perfectly in a cut out glass—framing
  • A few nice canted frames
  • All the actors are pretty weak and wooden except for Lorre—he sells it—eerie, he’s wrestling with his a hand—it should be funny but he’s so damn good he pulls it off- he comes off as sick and the scene where it’s revealed that he’s the only one that hears the piano noise and he loses it—quite powerful
  • A few great shadowy shots of the staircase—and a handful from underneath Lorre’s face in close-up with spotlight lighting on him—showing off his M-like losing of the mind
  • The hokey ending “can you imagine anyone believing a hand was alive” winking at the camera isn’t necessary- it’s weak-
  • Recommend- barely- not in the top 10 or more of 1946