Here's a link for "The Beast With Five Fingers" below.
Andrea King, one of my dearest friends during my 23 years living in Los Angeles, played the female lead in the film. She was such a stunning beauty when she was at Warner Bros. Sadly, she passed away in 2003 at the age of 84. We actually wrote a book together almost 20 years ago that I am dusting off now and will self-publish in the weeks/months ahead.
I don't want you to get your hopes too high about the film, Diva. By today's standards, it's a good, genuinely creepy Gothic mood piece, with an excellent score by Max Steiner (based on Bach's Chaconne, re-arranged for a one-handed pianist) and an equally excellent performance by Peter Lorre ... but it is far from "very scary" and far from perfect. Still, many people who saw it when they were young, especially back when it first came out in 1946, felt the same way your dad does. It made a huge impression, and people never forgot it.
Warner Bros. wasn't really used to doing horror films, so the really didn't know what to do with it.
Andrea told me all she did was scream through the whole thing, which isn't true, but it made me laugh. Years later, she came to appreciate it, and fans never stopped writing her about it. She also had great behind-the-scenes stories about Peter Lorre on the set. Those are in the book we wrote together.
I miss her every day. In many ways, she was my soul mate. She could make me laugh so much and had such a wonderful outlook on life. Beautiful inside and out.
Andrea King:
Behind the scenes -- Andrea goofing around with Peter Lorre.
The Beast With Five Fingers on DVD
"Jaws is the Citizen Kane of movies."
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Updated On: 10/9/13 at 04:49 PM
