Mad Love (1935)

Director:

Karl Freund

Writers:

Maurice Renard (novel)
Florence Crewe-Jones (translation and adaptation: novel "The Hands of Orlac")

Release Date:

12 July 1935 (USA)

Genre:

Romance | Horror

Tagline:

His love was pitiful...hopeless...madness...yet "The Thing" tired of pity - and demanded love!

Plot:

An insane surgeon's obsession with an actress leads him to replace her wounded pianist's hands with the hands of a knife murderer which still have the urge to throw knives.

Plot Keywords:

Hand | Actress | Pianist | Surgeon | Obsession

Cast

Peter Lorre	...	Doctor Gogol
Frances Drake	...	Yvonne Orlac
Colin Clive	...	Stephen Orlac
Ted Healy	...	Reagan, the American Reporter
Sara Haden	...	Marie, Yvonne's Maid
Edward Brophy	...	Rollo the Knife Thrower
Henry Kolker	...	Prefect Rosset
Keye Luke	...	Dr. Wong, Gogol's Assistant
May Beatty	...	Françoise, Gogol's Housekeeper
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
George Davis	...	Chauffeur (scenes deleted)
Billy Dooley	...	Undetermined Role (scenes deleted)
Harold Huber	...	Thief (scenes deleted)
Isabel Jewell	...	Marianne (scenes deleted)
Leo White	...	Undetermined Role (scenes deleted)

Also Known As:

The Hands of Orlac (UK)

Runtime:

68 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Finland:(Banned) | USA:Approved (PCA #1034)

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

The last directorial effort of famed cinematographer Karl Freund.

Quotes:

Yvonne Orlac: [referring to Gogol] He cures defomed children and mutilated soldiers.
Marie, Yvonne's Maid: Soldiers? I wish he'd fix one up for me.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Monster Mania (1997) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Etude Opus 10, no.4

Pure Peter!

German actor Peter Lorre made his American film debut in "Mad Love," which I believe was an MGM release and proved to be competition for some of the popular Universal Horror films of the time. Peter Lorre had made his epic debut with 1930's "M," in which Peter amazingly played a child-killer under director Fritz Lang. Peter is a demonic performer if their ever was one, and every memorable scene in this film has Peter's lonely mad doctor character at the helm. Peter is very much in love with a stage actress who is preparing to marry a popular pianist, and all of this gets in the way of Peter's fantasy to have the woman all for himself. A train accident occurs, which leaves the pianist with little hope, but it is Peter the doctor who goes about replacing the pianist's hands with those of a dead criminal, whom Peter himself had watched the beheading of a few days before the train accident. Things take a very silly turn, when the hands somehow take over the very personality of the pianist, and Peter's mad doctor plays the innocent with the pianist, while at the time, telling his actress girlfriend that he is simply mad and that she should stay far and away from him. I would rather not mention how the story unfolds, because that would ruin the good fun for those who have yet to watch this feature, but I must admit that the ending is very funny in a sad way, and there's so much going on with Peter's sanity throughout the film. Worth seeing for a variety of different reasons, so watch it.