Director/producer Herbert L. Strock made some movies of which he could be justifiably proud -- Gog, Battle Taxi, and Blood of Dracula were neat little low- to medium-budget releases that pleased audiences. The Crawling Hand probably pleased a lot of people who paid to see it in 1963, although whether or not they were paying to "see" it is an open question -- this is the kind of movie that usually played drive-ins, more than any other venues; but regardless of that, it's definitely not a movie of which Strock could be proud. The acting is mostly stiff and amateurish, which is no surprise given that the script is almost insultingly juvenile, and it's painfully obvious that a lot of first-takes were used, despite mistakes that could not have been missed at the time. What does make this movie slightly notable, if not exactly "worth" watching -- outside of the context of pictures that revel in their weaknesses (so bad they're almost "good") -- is the presence in the cast of a lot of basically good players, veterans and otherwise. Old-timers Richard Arlen and Sid Saylor are here, along with Arline Judge, Allison Hayes, Tristram Coffin, Ross Elliot, Kent Taylor, and Alan Hale, Jr.. Additionally, at least one once-promising newcomer, Beverly Lunsford, was somehow roped into appearing in this movie, along with former Miss Iceland Sirry Steffen. The Crawling Hand is sort of the sci-fi equivalent of all of those A.C. Lyles-produced westerns of the same era, populated by well-known actors and stars out of the 1940's.