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.
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In Paris, the great surgeon Dr. Gogol falls madly in love with stage actress Yvonne Orlac, and his ardor disturbs her quite a bit when he discovers to his horror that she is married to concert pianist Stephen Orlac. Shortly thereafter, Stephen's hands are badly crushed in a train accident- beyond the power of standard medicine. Knowing that his hands are his life, Yvonne overcomes her fear and goes to Dr. Gogol, to beg him to help. Gogol decides to surgically graft the hands of executed murderer Rollo onto Stephen Orlac, the surgery is successful but has terrible side-effects... Written by
Ken Yousten <kyousten@bev.net>
Charles Chaplin called Lorre the screen's best actor after seeing his performance in "Mad Love." See more »
Goofs
The wax statue of "Yvonne" is shown with arms straight down through the film, but toward the end, when there is a shot of the real Yvonne facing the wax statue, the statue has it's left arm bent, with hand on hip. See more »
Peter Lorre's bald, creepy looks as "Dr. Gogol" are memorable in this film. The story is fairly interesting with a few twists, although a bit far-fetched and a little corny in spots. Then again, it is 70 years old.
The black-and-white cinematography is very good in parts. I really liked the closeups on Lorre and the shadows in the hallway. Frances Drake is a pretty woman except for those weird eyebrows, the style of the day, unfortunately.
I saw this on a fair-to-poor quality tape. I imagine this looks pretty good on DVD and I'd like to see it again now that it's out on that format.
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Peter Lorre's bald, creepy looks as "Dr. Gogol" are memorable in this film. The story is fairly interesting with a few twists, although a bit far-fetched and a little corny in spots. Then again, it is 70 years old.
The black-and-white cinematography is very good in parts. I really liked the closeups on Lorre and the shadows in the hallway. Frances Drake is a pretty woman except for those weird eyebrows, the style of the day, unfortunately.
I saw this on a fair-to-poor quality tape. I imagine this looks pretty good on DVD and I'd like to see it again now that it's out on that format.