Sat 29 Jul 2017
A Horror Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: MAD LOVE (1935).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews[7] Comments
MAD LOVE. MGM, 1935. Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive, Ted Healy, Sara Haden, Keye Luke. Based on the novel Les Mains D’Orlac by Maurice Renard (The Hands of Orlac). Director: Karl Freund.
Directed by Karl Freund (The Mummy), Mad Love may not be the greatest horror movie released in the 1930s, but it’s a must-see for Peter Lorre fans. In his Hollywood debut Lorre portrays Dr. Gogol, a strange bald man fixated on Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake) an actress at a Grand Guignol-type Parisian theater. His romantic infatuation with the married Yvonne will plunge him deep into a living nightmare, one in which he will commit coldblooded murder to possess her like an object.
Adapted from Maurice Renard’s Les Mains d’Orlac (1920), the plot follows Dr. Gogol’s attempt to win Yvonne’s affections by performing a radical experimental procedure on her husband, Stephen Orlac (Colin Clive). Orlac, a concert pianist, had his hands crushed in a train accident. So Gogol, in hoping that he can win Yvonne’s heart by performing surgery on her husband’s hands, does the unthinkable. He replaces Orlac’s hands with that of a newly deceased convict, one whose life has recently been taken by the guillotine. As one might imagine, this does not work out well for Stephen Orlac. Having the hands of a murderer isn’t exactly conducive toward rebuilding his career as a musician.
But it’s not the plot that makes Mad Love worth a look. Rather, it’s Lorre’s performance, coupled with Freund’s direction and the general atmosphere of creepiness and dread that permeate the film’s aesthetic. Between light and shadow and close ups of Lorre’s deranged facial expressions, this movie captures what psychological horror ought to look like on screen.
Although there’s some lighthearted relief in the form of Dr. Gogol’s inebriated housekeeper, the movie takes place in an off-kilter world, a land of mirrors and madness. Call it post-German Expressionism or proto-noir, if you will. And Lorre, as in Fritz Lang’s M (1931) and John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (1941), gives an unforgettable performance.
July 30th, 2017 at 4:39 am
In his prime, Lorre was giving us things we’d rather not see. His practically solo turn in The Beast With Five Finger the purest expression of a Poe-esque film onscreen.
July 30th, 2017 at 3:18 pm
A daring film! Early on, Lorre obviously has an orgasm watching faux-torture in the theater….
July 30th, 2017 at 3:57 pm
Bill. Comment #1. You might think of BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS, while not directly realated, as a variant on the theme of MAD LOVE, not so?
July 30th, 2017 at 8:01 pm
Steve, well yeah. Tho Beast’s a stealth rewrite of The Tell-Tale Heart.
July 31st, 2017 at 11:57 pm
The book is a fine exercise in French Gothicism, but the film is all Lorre and Freund.
There are at least two remakes including a French one with Mel Ferrer as Orlac.
August 1st, 2017 at 12:21 am
From Wikipedia:
“Mad Love has been remade once, and was itself preceded by the 1924 Austrian silent film The Hands of Orlac, directed by Robert Wiene and starring Conrad Veidt. It was remade in 1960 as a French-British co-production that was directed by Edmond T. Gréville, and starred Mel Ferrer as Stephen Orlac and Christopher Lee as a new magician character named Nero.”
August 1st, 2017 at 9:55 pm
There is an unofficial remake, can’t think of the title, but its the basic story and no attribution, a cheapie too.