THE HANDS OF ORLAC (1924) stars Conrad Veidt as Orlac, a pianist whose hands are hopelessly mangled in a train crash. A doctor saves his career by giving him the hands of a condemned killer — but is it just Orlac’s imagination the hands are driving him to kill and kill again? Can he even touch his wife when his hands might decide to strangle him?
This film based on a 1920 novel that inspired multiple remakes as well as a Batman story with a clever twist (I reviewed it over at Atomic Junk Shop). The cinematography is dark and shadowy to the point of near-absurdity: would Veidt and his estranged father really leave their homes so badly illuminated? Still, it looks great and Veidt (best known as Major Strasser in Casablanca) does an excellent turn as the tormented musician. The reveal of what’s really going on makes it feel like a Scooby-Doo episode. Who has those fingerprints now? You, Paul Orlac!”
Small wonder the 1935 MAD LOVE is considered the definitive version of this story. Orlac (Colin Clive) is secondary here, the focus going to Frances Drake as Yvonne Orlac, a celebrated actor, and even more to Dr. Gogol (Peter Lorre), a brilliant but lonely surgeon obsessed with Yvonne (“I have conquered science! Why cannot I conquer love?”). When the accident destroys Orlac’s hands, Gogol reconstructs them with the hands of a recently executed killer, an ace knife-thrower … a skill Orlac suddenly discovers he’s acquired, even as his ability to play disappears.
Alas for Gogol, his success doesn’t bring him any closer to winning Yvonne’s heart. Finally he snaps, convinced if he drives Orlac mad, he’ll still have a shot at his dream girl. While there’s Scooby-Doo scheming here, it’s much better executed, plus it’s clear Orlac’s hands have indeed acquired the killer’s skills. Well worth seeing. I might rewatch this as a double bill with Frankenstein where it’s Colin Clive performing sinister experiments in transplantation. “I told him a lot of nonsense I didn’t believe myself.”
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