The Devil's Hand

EUREKA! has released a classic of 1940s French horror, The Devil's Hand (aka La Main Du Diable, aka Carnival Of Sinners) on Bluray. Director Maurice Tourneur film is presented in HD, the restoration by the Gaumont Film Company.

The restoration is of high quality, but the opening sequence showing a spectacular vista of the French Alps may make you question that. It looks a little distorted and the lightness level wavers across the screen. The explanation for this may be that the film was made in 1942 in Nazi occupied France. There were shortages of everything - that included film stock. This film, as James Oliver explainers in the commentary, used a lot of leftover stock from other films, some of which may not have been in the best condition to start with. It seems to me likely that the distortions were present in the original version of the film.

When it comes the the special features there is the aforementioned audio commentary by film critic James Oliver. He is highly knowledgeable and engaging. He does a good job of placing the work, cast and crew, and its Nazi-backed production company, Continental, within the context of the film industry in occupied France.

The Devil's In The Details is a video essay by film historian Samm Deighan. Its focus is on the place that The Devil's Hand holds in relation to films about Faustian pacts, possessed severed hands (The Hands Of Orlac etc) and The Bottle Imp style stories.

The final entry is Continental: French Cinema in the Devil’s Hand? a 2010 documentary by Pierre-Henri Gibert. It is about the Continental film company that was set up in France by the Nazi regime.

Reviewed on: 17 Mar 2026