As Mãos de Orlac

A famous pianist (Conrad Veidt) has his hands crushed in a train accident, and he receives new ones through an experimental transplant. But whose hands were they before? The hands of a killer!

This is a rather long film, probably more than it needs to be. The train wreck shots are beautiful, but go on a while, with the story being relatively simple.

The focus here is more on Orlac's mental state, and less on the others in any way, with the love affair angle of "Mad Love" (its remake) completely absent. For fans of "Mad Love", this picture needs to be respected, as they clearly borrowed scenes (noticeably where Orlac meets his donor), but "Mad Love" is the superior film in many ways.

Flirting with a (then) science fictional theme of body part transplantation, the film explores the feelings of a concert pianist, who having lost his hands in a train wreck, receives a new pair of hands that belonged to an executed murderer. Austrian director Robert Weine, who created the landmark 'The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari' (1919) here reunites with and directs its star, Conrad Veidt, as the tormented pianist Paul Orlac.

The camera focuses on Veidt's many moods and reactions to his plight -- his hands are not capable of his concert abilities, and he feels that they are taking him over with thoughts and deeds of crime and murder. He does an outstanding job, but too much of the film is slowly paced. From the beginning extended train crash rescue, on through scene after scene of Orlac's, his wife's and the maid's over the top Expressionistic gesturing, the scenes seem to go on too long.

This slow pace is exaggerated by the lack of camera movement (everything is mostly wide shots with little tracking), the wonderfully and effectively spooky new musical score (on the KINO 2008 version), that sometimes lacks verve and variety, as well as the extensive time spent on the actors' Expressionist movements.

The film certainly has its high points. It's great to see an entire film shot in shadows and low light, all with Gothic sets. This is great German Expressionism. If you can relax and just go with the pace of the film, you can really enjoy the acting of Conrad Veidt-- whose hands keep getting creepier and scarier.

If it were cut to about sixty minutes to pick up the pace, it would be easier to enjoy and to see the great care that went into its creation and execution.

I'll have to give it a six.

Interesting and well made German silent version of Maurice Renard's novel "Les Mains d'Orlac" from the same folks behind the highly regarded expressionist classic THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920). Conrad Veidt gives an outstanding, creepy and memorable dramatic performance as the tormented Orlac, a famous pianist whose hands are replaced by those of an executed thief and murderer after a train accident. He soon begins to think he's not only received a maniac's hands, but also his desire to commit crimes. The cavernous and sparsely decorated interiors as well as the typically exaggerated performances often give this the feel of a theatrical production, and while the movie is a little overlong and slow-going (definitely requires a more patient type of viewer to appreciate it), it's still worthwhile for Veidt's amazing performance, some nice visuals and a surprise twist ending. I also need to point out that the Kino DVD of the film runs 110 minutes, though it is listed here as running just 98. Bonus features on the disc include scene comparisons of domestic and international cuts, excerpts of Renard's Novel, an essay by author John Soister, a trailer and an image gallery.

The same tale would later be the basis for 1935's MAD LOVE (starring the inimitable Peter Lorre) and 1960's THE HANDS OF ORLAC (starring Mel Ferrer, and also with supporting turns from Christopher Lee and Donald Pleasence), as well as the uncredited basis for 1962's HANDS OF A STRANGER and several other films.

Director Robert Wiene and star Conrad Veidt reteam for this Austrian horror suspense drama. Veidt plays Paul Orlac, a famous concert pianist who gets severely injured in a train crash. Dr. Serral (Hans Homma) tries an experimental technique wherein he grafts the hands of a dead man onto Orlac's arms, and the surgery is a success, but afterward, when Orlac learns that the hands belonged to an executed murderer, he starts to lose his mind, believing that the hands are commanding him to kill again. Also featuring Alexandra Sorina, Fritz Strassny, Paul Askonas, Carmen Cartellieri, and Fritz Kortner.

Wiene continues to use Expressionistic techniques and visual schemes, but they are toned down, and used to accentuate the narrative rather than overwhelming the proceedings. The film marks an important step in the transition from purely arthouse Expressionism to the techniques used in the visual language of film noir. Veidt gives an intense, tortured performance, although Kortner pales in comparison to the later remake Mad Love and Peter Lorre's take on the character. Most sources list this as being roughly 90 minutes, but the version I watched was 113 minutes. I felt that could have been trimmed down a bit, as some scenes dragged. That being said, I enjoyed the film quite a bit, and the cinematography was beautiful.

I've been looking for a DVD of THE HANDS OF ORLAC ever since I knew the film existed. Now it's finally here, and like most silent films it's a mixed bag. I find the image on the new KINO disc to be acceptable considering the problematic nature of the source material. There's a loss of definition in some scenes, but there are also moments of sharpness in the restored Murnau Foundation print. It's a shame we can never experience non-talking films the way 1920s audiences did, without washed-out contrasts, image-flickers, frame-jitters, dirt, and print damage. Even the best restorations don't look new.

The plot concerns a concert pianist whose hands are smashed in a train wreck. A surgeon replaces them with the hands an executed criminal. Soon the pianist is obsessed with thoughts he might be a killer. The performances are generally excellent in the Expressionistic style. Conrad Veidt's exaggerated grimacing as his character Paul Orlac approaches madness is tempered by moments that are extremely moving.

The score of mostly string music on the KINO disc is creepy and works well for a while, but is so monotonous over the entire length of an already ponderously paced film that I grew tired of it. This film cries out for music that varies its mood to fit what is happening on screen. Contrasts in the mood of the music would make the creepy parts seem even creepier. An optional score in a traditional style would have been nice. Nevertheless, the Gothic set design and shadow-infested cinematography by Gunther Krampf - particularly the scenes at Orlac's father's house - create the atmosphere we know and love in early horror films. These chiaroscuro light-and-shadow effects just cannot be achieved with color.

However, to evoke fear without the modern cheats of gore and violence - to create what the Germans call "stimmung" (mood) - requires not only imaginative lighting and set design, but time. Unfortunately director Robert Weine spends too much time on the actors' very deliberate expressionistic movements at the expense of pacing.

The ending is likewise unsatisfactory, although it does follow Maurice Renard's novel. I won't give too much away other than to say the ending undercuts an apparently fantastic element, yet makes the "logical" explanation seem almost as implausible. Nevertheless, the build-up to the resolution as well as Veidt's engrossing performance makes this a worthwhile, if uninspired, film.