Associated Producers [1962] 60′
country: United States
director: GENE NELSON
cast: JOHN AGAR, PAULA RAYMOND,
cast: STEVE DUNNE, ROY GORDON
This is one film who’s reputation definitely precedes it. Unfortunately [for some at least], that reputation was built over several decades in which those interested in the film, lost to red tape and poor preservation, were limited to advertising materials and stills that had circulated in magazines like Famous Monsters. Distributor 20th Century Fox unearthed the only known surviving print [a cropped 16mm television copy] just prior to star John Agar’s death in 2002, hastily transferred it to video, and began airing it during the late night hours on their Fox Movie Channel. Bootleggers were swift to pick up the new cult property and, given Fox’s seeming reluctance to release it to home video proper, undoubtedly made a pretty penny for their troubles.
Any hopes that Fox might have a lost genre classic on their hands were quickly laid to rest when the TV print was put back in circulation. HAND OF DEATH was revealed to be little more than an ultra-cheap ultra-short par-for-the-course shock programmer – the sort of film that should have been floating around as a bargain-bin release for years, but that was precluded from such by the long ago death of its production company and the blight of legal entanglement. Unremarkable as it is, I was happy to see HAND OF DEATH finally get its nano-second in the limelight.
