Mad Love 1935

views updated

Mad Love ★★★ The Hands of Orlac 1935

Brilliant surgeon Gogol (Lorre) falls madly in love with actress Yvonne Orlac (Drake), but she rebuffs him. When her pianist husband Stephen's (Clive) hands are cut off in a train accident, Gogol agrees to attach new hands, using those of a recently executed knife-wielding murderer, Reagan (Brophy). Gogol then kills Stephen's stepfather and uses psychological terror to make the pianist think he killed him. There's also an appearance by the supposedly dead murderer who shows up to reclaim his hands. A real chiller about obsessive love and psychological fear. The only downfall to this one is the unnecessary comic relief by Healy. Lorre's first American film. 70m/B VHS . Peter Lorre, Colin Clive, Frances Drake, Ted Healy, Edward Brophy, Sara Haden, Henry Kolker, Keye Luke, May (Mae) Beatty; D: Karl Freund; W: P.J. Wolfson, John Lloyd Balderston, Guy Endore; C: Gregg Toland, Chester Lyons; M: Dimitri Tiomkin.