Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Mad Love is an absolute superb horror film from 1935 starring Peter Lorre as Dr Gogol. In this movie Dr Gogol has an object of affection called Yvonne. However there is a difficulty for him as she is married and does not care much for Gogol at all of his affections for her. As Dr Gogol says during the movie he can conquer science but he cannot conquer love. The frustration for the latter certainly is one that shared by many people around the world. Dr Gogol's frustration in not able to conquer love served as pivotal plot piece and which drives his madness in wanting Yvonne. This all served the movie superbly right up to its denouement and this all thanks in excellent form by Peter Lorre.

Apparently this movie is a remake of the Austrian silent "The Hands of Orlac" which I really want to see now since I thought "Mad Love" was awesome. This is mainly thanks to the role of Peter Lorre as the creepy looking and acting Dr. Gogol. That gaze in his eyes, that laugh when he disguised himself as the murderer that was insanely good. Another good role was for Gogol's housekeeper played by May Beatty together with her parrot putting some humor in an otherwise very serious and dark movie. Gogol's love interest Yvonne is played by Frances Drake, beautiful actress of who the doctor keeps a wax statue in his home. At the start of the movie I really thought that statue was a real person, so real it looked. The scene where Yvonne pretends to be the statue to fool Gogol is just awesome. The story is simple but really effective.

After an accident leaves him with crushed hands, a concert pianist's wife goes to the obsessed doctor in love with her to help him get over the accident, and when he agrees, the serial killer's hands he chooses for the operation have a life of their own after the successful surgery.This was enjoyable for what it was, though it's still quite flawed at times. As was the case most often with these early 30s horror efforts, not a whole lot of time is spent on actual horror, as the love affair showcased isn't all that well thought-out, leaving this one to just completely meander around during the beginning. While this makes his transformation into a psycho all the more credible, the actions don't move the film along into the horror arena. It's also pretty incredulous to believe the complete lack of knowledge gathered into who's hands were used, as the police investigation turns up nothing and the reporter never solves it, but for such an important procedure to take place, the fact that there's hardly anything known about that isn't brought up makes this section wholly unbelievable. While not a lot of action is done to suggest that this is a horror film, it certainly looks the part with it's impressive visuals, great layout and rather chilling sets as well as the fun final twenty minutes when the ruse has been uncovered, which does drag it out of the doldrums but is hardly enough to make it an out-and-out classic.Today's Rating-PG: Mild Violence

Cinematographer Karl Freund (he shot "Dracula," having directed "The Mummy" a few years earlier), was called in to direct his countryman Lorre in this marvelous example of 30s horror. There's a more relaxed sense to this one, as if he's feeling more comfortable in the job - or perhaps just more comfortable working in English. The story comes from "The Hands of Orloc," and is an oft re-told tale of a pianist who loses his hands in an accident, only to have a brilliant scientist replace them with those of a murderer. Of course, he comes to believe his hands are urging him to kill, but it's the mad doctor obsessed with the wife of the pianist who's really to blame. I had forgotten that Colin Clive of "Frankenstein" played the pianist, and there are certain touches that make me wonder if his friend James Whale might have turned up on the set to help out here and there. Freund keeps his odd angles and other expressionistic elements, though.