Sinister Hands (1932) Review: A delightfully clunky old murder mystery

Should you watch this today? Yes, but only if you have a soft spot for dusty, ultra-cheap 1930s detective stories that feel like they were filmed in someone's basement over a single weekend. Fans of slick modern thrillers will absolutely hate this, but anyone who loves goofy pre-code cinema will find it pretty charming.

It starts with a seance, which is always a great sign. Seances in these old movies are the best because the special effects usually just involve a guy in the back wiggling a table or blowing a whistle in the dark. 🕯️

Of course, the lights go out, a gun goes off, and the grumpy old millionaire ends up dead. It is a setup we have seen a million times, but it still works.

The detectives show up soon after, and they are delightfully bad at their jobs. The lead investigator spends way more energy chewing on his unlit cigar than actually looking for clues.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Sinister Hands (1932) through its definitive frames.

I swear, almost every suspect in the room looks guilty from the very first second. They all have these incredibly shady, exaggerated expressions whenever the camera zooms in on them.

There is this one actor, Mischa Auer, who has these massive, bulging eyes that just scream "I did it!" He keeps staring at people like he is trying to hypnotize them through the screen. It is hilarious.

The sound quality is pretty rough, to be honest. It sounds like they recorded the whole movie inside a giant metal trash can.

At one point, a character walks across the room and the floorboards creak so loudly it completely drowns out what they are saying. 🪵 But nobody cared enough to do another take, so they just left it in.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Sinister Hands (1932) through its definitive frames.

Unlike longer, more serious dramas of the era like The Divorcee, this one does not waste any time on deep emotions or moral lessons. It is just pure, trashy fun.

It is also super short, wrapping up in under an hour. It makes a great double feature if you pair it with something grittier like The Big House.

The ending is completely ridiculous, by the way. The killer's motive makes almost zero sense when you actually sit down and think about it for more than two seconds.

But that is part of the fun. It has that wonderful, clunky early-sound energy where everything feels slightly unpolished and rushed.

If you have an hour to kill and want to watch some actors in suits yell at each other in a dimly lit living room, give it a go. It is perfectly goofy Sunday afternoon viewing.