Mad Love (1935)

Mad Love (1935) aka The Hands of Orlac

While this movie often gets lumped with classic Horror films it’s not so much horrifying as simply very Weird.

Yes, it has all the required Horror credentials: From story, to casting, to eerie photography, to Karl Freund direction, to surreal sets.

There’s even at least one guy who goes nuts (possibly two) and an attempted murder, but it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly which part of it is it that’s supposed to be horrifying.

A concert pianist (Colin Clive) crushes his hands in a train wreck (question: how does the murderer who’s established as being on the same train escape the wreck?) and a brilliant doctor (Peter Lorre) who is obsessed with his actress wife (Frances Drake) is called upon to save them. He does so by grafting a murderer’s hands (Edward Brophy) in secret; at least, the pianist doesn’t seem quite aware of what was done to him.

The doctor impersonates the executed murderer claiming his head was reattached (in the film’s most outré an terrifying scene) and tries to drive the pianist mad, except that he himself is well on his way there.

Obsessed with the actress, the doctor buys a wax likeness of her, and confusing fantasy with reality he thinks the statue has come to life.

There are all sorts of kinky goings on: The murderer outfit seems like something out of a bondage fever dream; the obsession with the wax figure (sometimes the actress and others a likeness) might be a Bunuel fetish, except that we’ve seen it before; the doctor clearly also has a sadistic streak on him judging by his obsession with the Grand Guignol play, but he is also a caring and conscientious physician (note how he treats his children patients.)

Other than him being driven mad by his love for a woman he is established as a fully sympathetic character (in an odd moment he reveals a mother claiming to be penniless to bye lying, and yet he still performs the operation for free); and, in fact, his violent actions seem a bit out of character.

It’s difficult to see how the pianist new hands could possibly be possessed by their previous knife throwing owner.

The hands might be, but they are nothing without the arms or the brain behind them. But then, we don’t really know how the supposed supernatural mechanism for this would work.

More rational is simply the idea that the pianist is going nuts, but as he is unaware of their origin the suddenly acquired knife throwing ability must go unexplained.

A reporter (Ted Healy, yes, he of The Three Stooges) and a drunken maid (May Beatty) are there for comedy relief (though an opportunity for a double vision gag is missed when she does not see the waxwork and the actress together in the same frame.)

With Billy Gilbert, Sara Haden and Keye Luke.

A Cult Classic.