everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Admirable film.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

The inimitable Peter Lorre plays Dr. Gogol, an incredibly gifted surgeon. He has a weakness, however. He has fallen for an actress whose being rules his life. When she tells him she is married he is crestfallen. Her husband is a renowned classical pianist. He is injured in a train wreck, his hands crushed. Lorre works to cure him, but until he transplants the hands of a murderer, a knife thrower, the man cannot be whole. Of course, he now has the hands of a murderer and they want to kill, using knives. He thinks he will get the girl, but he disgusts her. Her rejection sends him over the edge. Great vehicle for the wonderful Lorre as he expresses madness and pain. Very well done horror tale.

From the year 1935 comes Mad Love, a first-rate horror film that's based upon the frequently adapted novel "The Hands of Orlac" and some 80 years later still stands as a brilliant adaption.Oddly, if you look at it a certain way, this film could qualify as a romantic comedy of sorts..... Mad Love is a deliciously, dark, yet humorous tale of a demented love-sick doctor, who has an obsession over a beautiful young actress and through the course of Mad Love's all to brief 68 minutes, a beautifully twisted tale unfolds. The key plot elements of this delightfully devious and under-rated classic involve, obsession, deception, decapitation, hand transplants, wax statues, knife-throwing, murder and a nosy, fast-talking reporter from New York.Mad Love is set in 1930's Paris and because it's such a short film (too short), the number of settings is kept to a mere handful, the most important setting is the private medical clinic/residence of Dr. Gogol (brilliantly performed by Peter Lorre) where the meatiest parts of the movie occur. Mad Love is a fun and mostly fast-paced film, that has a very off-beat sense of humor, a first rate-script of highly literate quality and a small, but stellar cast, that's comprised of a evenly balanced mix of American and European talent.Peter Lorre offers the best performance, as the demented and deceitful Dr. Gogol (surely one of his most colorful performances), also Colin Clive (one of his last film roles) of Frankenstein fame delivers with a characteristically moody and nervously, over-wrought performance. Also there's Ted Healy as the slick-talking' reporter, whose nosiness eventually cracks the case wide open, and not to forget the movies gorgeous heroine, Frances Drake, whose simply terrific in her role as the stage actress Yvonne Orlac - Doctor Gogol had good taste.The film is replete with lots of great visuals and stylistic touches, such as fish-eye lenses, mirror tricks, tilted camera shots, etc. The films director, Karl Freund, was by trade a veteran camera-man, who had a lot of tricks up his sleeve, which accounts for the engrossing visual quality that Mad Love possesses in spades. The movies most exciting and deviously entertaining moments all have one thing in common, they all feature Dr. Gogol (Peter Lorre) in the role of a deceitful and delusional, hopeless romantic; who has only two things on his mind - getting rid of Mrs. Orlac's hubby and then taking her for himself.My favorite visual in the film is the interesting interplay between, Gogol and a wax statue (that's in the likeness of Mrs. Orlac) which plays prominently into the fabric of the story. It's quite a lurid sight to watch, as a demented, bald-headed, Peter Lorre plays his pipe organ and talking to it, as if it were of flesh and blood; and for a added touch of madness, there's a cockatoo flying around the room just squawking away. Mad Love is highly effective at what it sets out to achieve and does so with great style, yet I think if it had been about 15 minutes longer and a little more fleshed out in certain parts this film could have been a 4 star masterpiece of horror.Mad Love, a devious night at the movies! No fan of Peter Lorre should miss out on this over-looked classic.

With his bald head, pudgy diminutive figure and buggy eyes, Lorre's Dr. Gogol resembles a troll from heck. So, with those looks, how does he think he's going to win the affection of the beauteous Yvonne (Drake). Besides he can't really decide whether it's the live Yvonne or her wax figure that attracts him most. After all the character's adapted from the Greek myth of a statue that springs to life because of a man's yearning. Here I've got to hand it to Drake who manages to stand stock still while impersonating the statue, no mean trick.Anyhow, Lorre manages to look scary, but still be sympathetic, since he devotes his physician's skills to healing injured kids just for the humanity of it. But he's got this weird obsession with Yvonne after seeing her in one of those old style gory stage shows. Besides she's already got a husband who plays beautiful music, unlike the poor ill-formed Gogol. Still that's no problem for a guy who can not only help kids, but also transplant heads and hands when needed. After all, this is Peter Lorre, not Robert Taylor. So watch out Mr. Yvonne (Clive), that obsession is all-consuming.Having seen the movie years ago with all its nightmarish light and shadow, I chuckle every time director Freund's name comes up as a regular crew member in the old slapstick series, I Love Lucy. It's hard to conceive of two more contrasting formats, yet he appeared to excel at both. Anyway, the movie's an effective horror piece thanks mainly to Lorre and Freund. My only reservations are Clive who looks too dissipated to be either a desirable husband or a concert pianist, while the knife-throwing gimmick seems too impersonal to be scary. I'd have preferred the hands of maybe a more "ripper" type psychopath. All in all, the movie's a Lorre showcase, proving you don't have to have glamour-boy type looks to carry a movie impressively.

Karl Freund directed this stylish and creepy film starring Peter Lorre(memorable in a star-making performance) as Doctor Gogol, a lonely surgeon madly in love with stage actress Yvonne Orlac, though his affection is sadly spurned because she is already married to a successful pianist(played by Colin Clive). When his hands are later damaged in a train accident, his only hope for recovery is...Dr. Gogol! Desperate, Yvonne begs him to help her husband, and he agrees, but uses the hands of recently executed murderer Rollo, who seems to pass on his strangling ways to the pianist. Can Yvonne save her husband, and stop Gogol? Effective horror film holds up well today, though Gogol may provoke laughter as much as fear...(Nothing wrong with that here though!)