Mad Love 1935 Vhs Deals on Frances Drake

Mad Love (1935) [VHS]

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Editorial Reviews

Beautiful Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake) is the star of a Grand Guignol theatrical production; creepy Dr. Gogol (Peter Lorre) is infatuated with her, going into a swoon during her onstage torture scenes and sending mash notes to her dressing room. The doctor is devastated when she plans to leave the stage and go on tour with her husband, Stephen Orlac (Colin Clive), a concert pianist. Gogol buys Yvonne's wax figure and keeps it in his house, feeding his preoccupation with her as he slips further into madness. Disaster strikes, however, when Orlac's hands are ruined in a train accident; seeing his chance, Gogol locates Rollo, a knife-throwing murderer who has an upcoming appointment with the guillotine. The murderer's hands are affixed to the pianist's stumps, and soon Orlac discovers a newfound penchant for flinging knives with deadly accuracy. He quarrels with his father over money for his medical bills, and when the father turns up dead, Orlac is arrested for his murder. After rigging himself up with steel gloves and a grotesque neck brace, Gogol convinces the rather credulous Orlac that he is Rollo, complete with reattached head and metallic hands, and that Orlac is responsible for his father's murder.

Director Karl Freund's name will be familiar to fans of I Love Lucy; he became the chief cinematographer for Desilu Studios in the '50s, after an illustrious career that included Murnau's The Last Laugh and Lang's Metropolis. Teaming up with cameraman Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane, The Best Years of Our Lives), Freund made Mad Love into one of the most European-flavored Hollywood horror pictures of the '30s. The shot compositions are dominated by cathedral and arch shapes that recall the most inventive expressionist shadowplay of the time. Lorre's performance is a perfect descent into obsession and madness, his bulging, heavy-lidded eyes making him both sinister and pathetic as the crazed Gogol. Lorre's character is actually far more disturbing than the rather hoary tale of the murderer's hands. Drake and Clive, on the other hand, turn in some delightfully overheated performances (as does Three Stooges foil Ted Healy for comic relief). --Jerry Renshaw

Customer Reviews

A Creepy Character

Reviewed by Craig Connell, 2009-03-16

Peter Lorre's bald, creepy looks as "Dr. Gogol" are memorable in this film. Just look at the cover of this VHS!

The story is fairly interesting with a few twists, although a bit far-fetched and a little corny in spots. Then again, it is 70 years old.

The black-and-white cinematography is very good in parts. I really liked the closeups on Lorre and the shadows in the hallway. Frances Drake is a pretty woman except for those weird eyebrows, the style of the day, unfortunately.

I saw this on a fair-to-poor quality tape. I imagine this looks pretty good on DVD and I'd like to see it again now that it's out on that format.

Fun, if groanworthy in parts.

Reviewed by Robert P. Beveridge, 2008-01-23

Mad Love (Karl Freund, 1935)

While Karl Freund is one of classic cinema's greatest cinematographers (he's best known today, probably, for being the guy placing the cameras for I Love Lucy), he did get behind the camera and direct every now and again. Ten times, to be exact, of which only one remains well-known today-- the Boris Karloff hit The Mummy. Mad Love, Freund's final film as a director, is to be blunt nowhere near the level of The Mummy, but it certainly has its moments.

Adapted from Maurice Renard's potboiler The Hands of Orlac, Mad Love is the story of Dr. Gogol (Peter Lorre) and his all-consuming love for stage actress Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake). Yvonne's husband, Stephen (Colin Clive), is a famous concert pianist. Gogol, however, is unaware Stephen exists, and thinking Yvonne single, he pursues her until she mentions she's married. Not a good thing where an obsession is concerned. Gogol resigns himself to a life of loneliness, contenting himself with a wax figure of Yvonne that had stood in the theater, until a train wreck mangles Stephen's hands and Yvonne calls on Gogol to save him. Other doctors have said Stephen's hands were beyond saving, but Gogol, who attended the execution of the murderer Rollo (Edward Brophy) that morning, has a sudden flash of inspiration: a hand transplant. It's a success, with one exception: Stephen's new hands have kept the proclivities of their former owner.

This is fun stuff indeed, though the script could have used a bit of polishing (the climactic scene is unintentionally hysterical more than once); Lorre and Drake are two great tastes that taste great together, and Clive (The Bride of Frankenstein) makes a great milksop. (In both looks and-- at least in this movie-- temperament, he seems to have been the Bill Pullman of the thirties.) There is excellent comic relief to be had in the form of Gogol's constantly-drunk housekeeper and the dogged reporter who woos her as a way to find out what Gogol did with Rollo's body after it was shipped to him. It is, in most respects, a fine film, and one well worth watching. Just get ready to cringe when Peter Lorre starts that last monologue. ***

Mad About The Girl

Reviewed by Adrian Stranik, 2006-10-13

Brilliant surgeon Dr Gogol is in `mad love' with actress Yvonne Orlac. Night after night he watches her performance in a Grand Guignol production where he almost passes out with ecstasy during her torture scenes. Clearly insane, Gogol's final decent into madness is exacerbated by the news that Yvonne is retiring from acting to tour with her genius pianist husband Stephen.

Gogol's evenings are spent lamenting his loss with a waxwork replica of the actress; regaling it with declarations of love and piano sonatas.
When Stephen Orlacs hands are severed in a train smash, Yvonne goes to Gogol for help. Gogol acquires the hands of a recently executed maniac and grafts them on to the stricken musician with questionable success. What Stephen now lacks in musical dexterity is more than made up for by a murderous rage and deadly knife throwing abilities. After a row with his father, Stephen is blamed for murdering him. Gogol seizes his chance to frame Stephen and vent his `mad love'.

An almost forgotten classic, Mad Love is a creaky expressionist chiller based on Maurice Renard's `Les Main D'Orlac' (The Hands of Orlac) and was directed by shadow-miester Karl Freund who later went on to direct The Mummy and lens `greatest movie ever made `Citizen Kane.

Mad Love is a fairytale of the darkest timbre, but its main thrust about creepy limb transplants is totally derailed by Lorre's murderously `lost in love' Dr Gogol. With his baby smooth skin and bulging eyes Gogol is a bizarre arrangement of ping pong balls and reptilian charm. His whining whispery voice seems to slither around you until it finds a suitable opening in your clothing - or worse - your skin! Mad Love was Lorre's first major role in the states having established himself in Germany with the Fritz Lang classic `M'. Here Lorre turns in an early example of his unhinged outsider shtick - and although he acts everybody else off the screen - it's no great stretch when you consider that here he's playing opposite the likes of `Frankenstein's Colin Clive who, as always, displayed more ham than Fray Bentos.

Mad Love is a Tim Burton film before there was Tim Burton. The scene in which Gogol disguises himself as the resurrected killer in surgical braces and artificial limbs to convince Stephen that he's responsible for his father's murder is as jarring an image of abject revulsion ever committed to celluloid - the diabolical offspring of Humpty Dumpty and Edward Scissor Hands.

During a film course I attended in Brighton a few years ago legendary film maker Jack Cardiff related the tale of Peter Lorre's `dying' on the set of a film he was directing and then suddenly coming back to life and asking for directions for the nearest bar whilst being given his last rites. Lorre's life was a litany of persecution, (a Hungarian Jew - he had to flee the holocaust) typecasting (forever tagged as the worlds greatest `Peter Lorre type' actor) and morphine addiction. Whatever the source of Lorre's demons, it can't ever be said that he didn't make those demons work for him. Mad Love alone is testament to that.

Adrian Stranik

It's all in the hands

Reviewed by Bomojaz, 2006-06-03

Fine horror gem starring Peter Lorre doing what he does best: scaring the daylights out of viewers by going over the deep end into madness. He plays a doctor who is in love with Frances Drake, who in turn is married to concert pianist Colin Clive. When Clive loses his hands in a train accident, Lorre gives him new ones - that once belonged to a murderer who specialized in knife-throwing (an idea copied later most memorably in BLACK FRIDAY). Lorre schemes to get rid of Clive by killing Clive's stepfather with a knife and then getting Clive to believe he was the one who did it. It comes close to working, but Drake interferes and when Lorre attempts to strangle her, Clive saves his wife by, yep, tossing a knife right into Lorre. Lorre is perfect in his role, and when he finally snaps and goes into that hysterical laughter - wow! But Drake and Clive are excellent, too, and everything about the production, from the script to the editing, is done with care. Definitely worth a watch.

"EACH MAN KILLS THE THING HE LOVES BEST!"

Reviewed by Anonymous, 2005-01-03

Peter Lorre stars as the evil Dr. Gogol, A man obsessed with the beautiful Yvonne Orlac{Frances Drake}. But his love turns deadly when he discovers she is to be married to pianist Stephan Orlac{Colin Clive}. To stop the marriage, When Stephan's hands are ripped off in a train accident, The mad doctor grafts on knife thrower's hands! After murdering his father, Stephan is charged with murder. To get help, Yvonne goes to Dr. Gogol's house, Only to discover his wax replica of her in his study. Finding her in the study, Dr.Gogol has only one choice.... to kill the thing he loves best! A grizzly chiller with macabre sensation, Peter Lorre.
Starring Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive, Ted Healy and Sara Haden. Directed by Karl Freund, 68 Minutes.