The Hand (1981 film)
| The Hand | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Oliver Stone |
| Produced by | Edward R. Pressman |
| Written by | Oliver Stone |
| Starring |
Michael Caine Andrea Marcovicci Bruce McGill |
| Music by | James Horner |
| Cinematography | King Baggot |
| Edited by | Richard Marks |
| Distributed by |
Orion Pictures Warner Bros. |
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Release date
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Running time
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104 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | CAD 6,500,000 |
| Box office | $2.4 million (USA) |
The Hand is a 1981 American psychological horror film written and directed by Oliver Stone, based on the novel The Lizard's Tail by Marc Brandell. The film stars Michael Caine and Andrea Marcovicci. Caine plays Jon Lansdale, a comic book artist who loses his hand, which in turn takes on a murderous life of its own. The original film score is by James Horner, in one of his earliest projects. Warner Bros. released the movie on DVD on September 25, 2007.
Jon Lansdale (Michael Caine) is a comic book illustrator, whose relationship with his beautiful wife Anne (Andrea Marcovicci) and daughter Lizzie (Mara Hobel) is on the rocks. While driving, Anne and Lansdale end up behind a slow-moving truck and an impatient driver behind them. In the heat of an argument, Anne, accidentally pulls back too fast while Lansdale is waving down the truck driver, causing his right hand to be completely severed. Anne attempts to find the severed hand but it is too late.
Lansdale then starts a painful adjustment to not having his drawing hand, while Anne deals with the guilt of having caused the accident and tries to get closer to her husband. Lansdale attempts unsuccessfully to recover the hand himself, though he does find his signet ring that Anne gave him. The couple move to New York and Lansdale is approached by his friend and agent Karen Wagner (Rosemary Murphy) to co-produce his comic with another artist, David Maddow (Charles Fleischer). Lansdale however, begins to show signs of a mental breakdown, and when he shows the test boards to Karen, they are all marked up. The deal is off and Karen fires Lansdale, who cannot recall marking up the boards while questioning his daughter about the incident. In a fit of frustration, Lansdale loses his signet ring. Anne is unable to cope with Lansdale's increasingly erratic behavior and general instability. Lansdale becomes jealous of Anne's yoga instructor and begins his slow descent into total darkness when an encounter with a homeless man (Oliver Stone) leaves the man dead at the "hand" of his former appendage. It's not entirely clear whether or not this was a real event or something in his mind. Lansdale begins having hallucinations about various inanimate objects coming to life as a hand, like a shower faucet.
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Wikipedia