Based on the novel by Maurice Renard
Screenplay by Louis Nerz
Directed by Robert Wiene
Starring Conrad Veidt, Alexandra Sorina, Fritz Kortner, Carmen Cartellieri, Fritz Strassny and Paul Askonas
Austria, 1924
THE HANDS OF ORLAC reunites the star and director of THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, Conrad Veidt and Robert Wiene, for another crack at the creation of modern horror. This time out Veidt stars as a famous concert pianist who loses his hands in a train accident, only to have them surgically replaced with the hands of a recently executed murderer. No sooner does he begin to recover than he also begins to have disturbing visions and murderous impulses, unable to play the piano or touch his wife (Alexandra Sorina), paranoid that he now has evil within him.
It's a pretty good setup but from here things get a little convoluted as the Orlacs hurt for money, attempt to get some from the pianist's father (Fritz Strassny) who hates him, and a mysterious caped criminal enters the picture, attempting to frame and blackmail the pianist. Eventually these things all sort themselves out, but a couple super natural elements are never quite explained and the story's denouement is not quite as satisfying as the setup has us hoping.
This plot might sound a little familiar and that's because it was later remade as MAD LOVE, featured all the way back in Horrorfest 2013, starring Peter Lorre. That one is at once more fleshed out and less convoluted than this one, which is quite a trick if you can pull it off. Still, you can see the influence of the original on horror flicks to come, and since it stands in the shadow of the great CALIGARI, ORLAC is often overlooked and forgotten, so it's nice to be reminded Wiene was not a one hit wonder.
This is the kind of movie I used to read about in library books when I was a kid, looking at the still images in the books and reading the descriptions, figuring there'd be no way I'd ever get to actually watch a silent horror film from 1924. Little did I know in the future I'd be able to pop open a laptop and be watching it within seconds of searching for it.
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