Les mains d'Orlac

One of the numerous film versions of the compelling story of The Hands of Orlac, a pianist who has a murderer's hands grafted on to his after an accident. This time Mel Ferrer is Stephen Orlac. Ferrer actually does a pretty good job in this rather complex role of someone being torn apart not by the fact that he kills but rather by the thought that he sometimes thinks he must or will kill. There is only one murder in this film, so if action is your poison you might want to pass. However, despite the lack of action and any real budget in this film, the film is rather good, especially during the second half where the pace is picked up considerably. Christopher Lee as a blackmailing magician is the real star of the film as he plays one of his oiliest, slickest bad guys on film. Lee oozes a kind of vitriolic charm as he maniacally laughs and speaks ever so nicely whilst blackmailing. Danny Carrel plays his lovely French-speaking assistant with gusto, charm, and lusciousness. The film has a good cast of character actors like Felix Alymer, Donald Pleasance in a meaningless yet nice cameo, and Sir Donald Wolfit in an equally small role. Modern(what passed for modern then) music plays throughout.The film is markedly different from many other versions, and in particular Mad Love. It has an interesting twist ending. All in all a pretty good little film.

I have to admit to dozing a bit during this film. I thought it would be a B movie, hands out of control film. Instead, there are missing action , loooooots of talking, and a silly plot that defies everything that was set up. Christopher Lee is pretty good as the villain, but this story goes nowhere. If one could give up enough of one's life to watch this again, try to understand what Lee was trying to accomplish. It's just plain dull.

It's not true what Rainey-Dawn (United States), writes in his review: Orlac knows he has the hands of a "killer", he wakes up on the hospital bed after surgery and sees the two articles on the front page of a newspaper, about him and about the "killer". Mel Ferrer is unconvincing in the role, and the same is Lucile Saint-Simon. The only ones trying to save the film, through his acting value, is Christopher Lee, and through her personal charm, is Dany Carrel. But the movie can't be saved because the whole story is absurd and stupid. The final is a great demonstration.

This is a fairly rare film starring Christopher Lee, Mel Ferrer and Dany Carrel. Three fine actors in the movie that actually make the film worth watching. Christopher Lee is good as usual in this film... he plays a really wicked blackmailer - watch this film just for his performance if nothing else.

The story is an interesting one: a pianist looses his hands in a accident and surgically gets new hands but he did no know that the hands originally belonged to a murderer.

So we have good actors and a good story. What's wrong with the film is the cinematography.... it's really flat, one-dimensional - amateurish yet watchable. As others have mentioned, there is the lack of some creepy or suspenseful music - if the film had that it would have added a new layer of underlying horror if it was present in the movie.

Over all, I enjoyed this film.... it's just a lack of better cinematography and eerie music that is all that is missing - otherwise a decent story and good acting.

7/10

A good story and a good cast are wasted in this amateurishly written and directed misfire. It's nearly as bad as Ed Wood films like PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE.

How these no-talents managed to engage so many name actors is a mystery. It was a French production, I guess, and they tried to film it in French and English, but the results are amazingly tacky and clumsy.

Virtually every scene falls flat or is unintentionally funny. But it's not quite bad enough to be good, like PLAN NINE. It's just bad.

What's worse? Christopher Lee's unintentionally comic "maniacal laughter"? Or the jaunty, jazzy musical score. Apparently no one told the composer he was writing music for a horror film. The grimmest scenes are accompanied by toodling flutes and cheery jazz riffs that would be more appropriate to a 1960s documentary on "Swingin' London".

The best version BY FAR of this much-filmed story is 1935's MAD LOVE, directed by the great Karl Freund, with Peter Lorre.