Trivia buffs may like to note that even as Maurice Tourneur was shooting this Gothic tale for Continental in Paris his son Jacques was shooting Cat People in Hollywood. This is a very superior piece of Gothic if anybody asks you; it bows to convention insofar as in a lonely inn subject to power failure a stranger narrates the story of how he, as a struggling artist was persuaded to 'buy' for peanuts a 'talisman' in the shape of a severed human left hand from a restauranteur. Of course his fortunes did improve dramatically and equally inevitably the piper came round one day to collect the payment for calling the tune. In a masterstroke the 'devil' takes the shape of a Caspar Milquetoast, a bowler-hatted bailiff who informs our hero that the 'price' doubles every day he keeps the hand. Naturally his mistress chooses that moment to take it on the Jesse Owens with his savings leaving him to face a mounting bill. In a second masterstroke the artist (Pierre Fresnay) comes face to face with previous 'owners' of the hand, beginning with a monk who declined to use his artistic talent for the good of God. Our artist finds that he must stump up - if you'll forgive the expression - the collective tab for all of these previous owners. Made under German occupation it would not have been hard in 1943 to locate a hidden 'message' here but sixty years on it still works as a psychological horror story. Excellent.
Review of Carnival of Sinners
