The Thieving Hand
About The Thieving Hand
A one-armed peddler selling pencils returns a ring a rich man dropped. The man buys him an arm at a limb store. The arm steals on its own. The peddler is arrested and jailed. In the same jail the arm crawls back to a one-armed thief in striped clothes, the man it came from. The last frames of the surviving print, in which the peddler is let go, are missing.
Cast & crew
More about The Thieving Hand
No director is credited on the film. Some filmographies name J. Stuart Blackton, who also produced, and others leave the director unnamed. Paul Panzer plays the peddler. Vitagraph released it in the United States on 1 February 1908. Timed at 6 minutes when run at 16 frames per second. Shot in Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Themes
Making
The arm is a trick-film prop that keeps moving after the peddler wants it to stop, then leaves him in the cell.
Technique
Stop-motion and substitution put a detached arm through the street, the store, and the jail.
Preservation
George Eastman House holds the only known print. The frames of the peddler's release are gone. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- The only known surviving copy is a 35mm print at George Eastman House.
- It is on the 2000 DVD set Treasures from American Film Archives, from the National Film Preservation Foundation.
- A modern score used with that copy is the 1908 song "The Yama Yama Man," from the show The Three Twins. It is not a 1908 Vitagraph track.
Scenes
- The new arm picks pockets while the peddler tries to hold it back.
- In the jail the arm crawls across the floor to the one-armed convict.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Thieving Hand (1908).webm)
- Treasures from American Film Archives (National Film Preservation Foundation, 2000)
