ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Peter Lorre (in his first American role) plays a brilliant but crazed surgeon who falls hopelessly in love with the wife of a world famous pianist.

When the pianist loses his hands in a train crash, the surgeon replaces them with the hands of an executed murderer, then he plots to convince the pianist that the new hands are turning him into a murderer.

The film is skillfully directed by Karl Freund, with strange dream-like montage sequences that reveal the demented workings of the surgeon's crazed brain.

Colin Clive ("Frankenstein") plays the pianist, and Francis Drake plays his lovely wife. The 1961 remake (entitled "The Hands of Orlac") starred Mel Ferrer and Christopher Lee.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[The Spike]

Brilliant surgeon Dr. Gogol is infatuated with Horror Theatre star Yvonne Orlac.

After meeting her in person and realizing that she only has eyes for her husband, the renowned pianist Stephen Orlac, he buys a life size mannequin of her and dreams of doing what Pygmalion did with Galatea.

When Stephen is involved in an horrific train crash and has both his hands crushed beyond healing, Yvonne pleads with Gogol to help save his well being, he does, by amputating the crushed hands and grafting on the hands of a recently executed murderer, a murderer whose speciality was knives!

Mad Love is one of those amazingly old classics that is a hybrid of genre staples. At times it's surrealist and at others it's operating via a Grand Guginol pulse, whilst knowingly it laces the story with an uneasy comedic bent.

Boasting camera work from Gregg Toland and Chester Lyons and directed by the impressive Karl Freund, this adaptation of Maurice Renard's novel is a chillingly memorable piece of film making.

Working off a plot that sees the bad Doctor driven by lust rather than out and out insanity, Freund revels in slowly winding the coil until the spring that is Peter Lorre (Gogol) explodes (implodes), cloaking various scenes in telling shadows that themselves become integral to the plot.

Peter Lorre is of course in his element, demented yet sympathetic. It's really hard to take your eyes away from his magnetic weirdness. Colin Clive as Stephen Orlac also puts in a performance of note — all twitchy nervousness and believable emotional torment, whilst Frances Drake more than adequately brings vulnerability to the importance of Yvonne's emotional turmoil.

Weird and gorgeous and incredibly well written, Mad Love holds up very well today as a horror/romance film of vast influential worth. So, see it in the dark and marvel at its various moments of cinematic excellence. 8.5/10
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The quality of mercy is not strnen.

[Bud Brewster]

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As Peter Lorre would say, "Dis is a most unusual trailer, to be sure, my friend."

Peter (the actor) is showen relaxing at home when an actress calls him on the phone to talk about his upcoming movie.

She looks and sounds like Margaret Lindsey (seen her from "A Murder at Midnight") —

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— but an online source states that it's Peter Lorre's Mad Love costar Frances Drake. Watch the trailer and tell me what you think, guys.

After they chat for about a minute, the trailer turns into a traditional preview, with all the on-screen text that ballyhoos the movie.

Fun stuff.

_________ Mad Love Official Trailer #1 - Peter Lorre Movie (1935) HD


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)