This movie has uniformly good acting, with especially high kudos to Robert Alda and Andrea King (IMO their best movie), great atmosphere, a terrific musical score, and solid direction. The hand is very chilling and Lorre doesn't disappoint. What's not to like?
shareI agree that the atmosphere and the music are superb; the hand effects are good too, and the film's greatest strength, IMO, are Peter Lorre's struggles with that creepy hand during the movie's final third. Lorre, J. Carrol Naish, and Victor Francen all contribute fine work here.
What's not to like? To me, Alda and King are merely serviceable here, though I'll give King a little extra credit for the scenes when she was trying to calm an increasingly agitated Lorre.
Then there's the ending...that awful, tacked-on, studio-imposed, weakly conceived, poorly executed last five minutes. Obviously I don't wish to elaborate, but I felt badly for the performer who has to try to pull that sad wrap-up off.
Some reviewers have tanked the whole movie because of those last few minutes, but that's too extreme; I think it's worth a solid 7/10.