- Actors: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive, Ted Healy, Sara Haden
- Directors: Karl Freund
- Writers: Edgar Allan Woolf, Florence Crewe-Jones, Gladys Von Ettinghausen, Guy Endore, John L. Balderston
- Format: NTSC
- Language: English
- Number of tapes: 1
- MPAA Rating:
- Studio: MGM (Warner)
- VHS Release Date: Feb 10 1993
- Run Time: 68 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- ASIN: 630250998X
-
Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#22,273 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
- #7 in Video > Classics > Horror > Mad Scientists
- #7 in Video > Horror > Classic Horror & Monsters > Mad Scientists
- #92 in Video > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Classic Sci-Fi
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon.com
Beautiful Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake) is the star of a Grand Guignol theatrical production; creepy Dr. Gogol (Peter Lorre) is infatuated with her, going into a swoon during her onstage torture scenes and sending mash notes to her dressing room. The doctor is devastated when she plans to leave the stage and go on tour with her husband, Stephen Orlac (Colin Clive), a concert pianist. Gogol buys Yvonne's wax figure and keeps it in his house, feeding his preoccupation with her as he slips further into madness. Disaster strikes, however, when Orlac's hands are ruined in a train accident; seeing his chance, Gogol locates Rollo, a knife-throwing murderer who has an upcoming appointment with the guillotine. The murderer's hands are affixed to the pianist's stumps, and soon Orlac discovers a newfound penchant for flinging knives with deadly accuracy. He quarrels with his father over money for his medical bills, and when the father turns up dead, Orlac is arrested for his murder. After rigging himself up with steel gloves and a grotesque neck brace, Gogol convinces the rather credulous Orlac that he is Rollo, complete with reattached head and metallic hands, and that Orlac is responsible for his father's murder.
Director Karl Freund's name will be familiar to fans of I Love Lucy; he became the chief cinematographer for Desilu Studios in the '50s, after an illustrious career that included Murnau's The Last Laugh and Lang's Metropolis. Teaming up with cameraman Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane, The Best Years of Our Lives), Freund made Mad Love into one of the most European-flavored Hollywood horror pictures of the '30s. The shot compositions are dominated by cathedral and arch shapes that recall the most inventive expressionist shadowplay of the time. Lorre's performance is a perfect descent into obsession and madness, his bulging, heavy-lidded eyes making him both sinister and pathetic as the crazed Gogol. Lorre's character is actually far more disturbing than the rather hoary tale of the murderer's hands. Drake and Clive, on the other hand, turn in some delightfully overheated performances (as does Three Stooges foil Ted Healy for comic relief). --Jerry Renshaw
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A MACABRE FASCINATION.,
This review is from: Mad Love (VHS Tape)
The macabre Dr. Gorgol (Peter Lorre) is so madly infatuated with the beautiful wife (Frances Drake) of a concert pianist (Colin Clive) that he conceives a diabolical plan...That there is something twisted behind the shaven head and dead face is indicated by an opening sequence in which, enraptured, Lorre watches a Grand Guignol stage performance in which Drake plays a faithless wife put to torture. Lorre later turns her into a waxwork image to be worshipped, serenaded on the piano, and read poetry to in the privacy of his own weird home...This is by far the best of many versions and variants of Maurice Renard's novel LES MAINS d'ORLAC. Karl Freund, the master cinematographer who won himself an AA for THE GOOD EARTH in 1938, is, however, no more at ease direction-wise than he was making THE MUMMY three years prior. However, the film boasts an astounding performance from Lorre in his American picture debut.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Good Little Gem,
By llllloyd (minnesota,usa) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Mad Love (VHS Tape)
Mad Love is an interesting and well made little picture. You've got Karl Freund,Peter Lorre and Greg Toland all working near their peaks and that alone is something to behold. Another beautiful black and white film, some may want to hold off and see if it hits DVD but VHS is not evil-not like Peter Lorre...Fans of classic cinema (and Citizen Kane in particular as this film influenced a young Welles-he sought out Toland as a collaborator based on his work on this and other films) and the almost always entertaining Lorre should pick this up. Not well known but well worth discovering.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lorre steals the show,
By
This review is from: Mad Love (VHS Tape)
The movie itself is not that good. It's rather ludicrous, really: a murderer's hands are affixed to the stumps of a concert pianist whose hands are crushed in a train accident, and the transplanted hands start flinging knives with deadly accuracy. If this was supposed to be the scary part of the film, it didn't work at all. What _does_ work, however, is Peter Lorre's performance as Dr. Gogol, who does the transplant. He's creepy, yet pathetic. You actually feel sorry for him as you watch his descent into madness. He's a sympathetic monster (although he does go a bit over the edge when he shows up with metallic hands and a neckbrace, claiming he's the murderer with his head sewn back in place). There are also some surprisingly humorous bits; Ted Healy as a newspaper reporter, and Gogol's drunken housekeeper, who sees two of everything and thinks wax figures come to life and talk to her (at the end, so does Gogol). Mostly this is for horror fans, although I think most everyone will be impressed by one of Lorre's best performances.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
