Mad Love (1935)
Directed by Karl Freund

Film Review

If, by moving to America, Peter Lorre had any hopes of putting behind him the role that had made him famous, that of the child serial killer in Fritz Lang's M (1931), these hopes were surely dashed when he was shoehorned into the part of Dr Gogol in Mad Love, the first film he made in Hollywood.  With his head shaven to make him vaguely resemble F.W. Murnau's creepy vampire in Nosferatu (1922), Lorre manages to appear even more sinister and threatening than he did in Lang's film, and yet whilst he is utterly terrifying in a few scenes, somehow he never loses our sympathies.

It was a stroke of genius to conflate the two archetypes of the 1930s American horror movie - the mad scientist and misunderstood monster - into one character, and Lorre was ideally suited for the role, his grotesque outward appearance belying the tragic inner fragility of a soul in torment, to say nothing of his compassion for his fellow man.  So effectively does Lorre seize our compassion that we scarcely notice, let alone care about, the other characters in the drama.  Such a shame that the film has to dwell on the more gruesome aspects of Dr Gogol's nature - his best friend is a carnivorous plant and his main leisure activities include watching the woman he has a crush on being tortured to death on stage and attending the occasional guillotining.  And he has a Pygmalion complex.

Mad Love is loosely based on the popular French novel Les Mains d'Orlac by Maurice Renard, which had previously been adapted as the Austrian silent film Orlacs Hände (1924) by Robert Wiene with Conrad Veidt in the central role of the musician Stephen Orlac.  In Mad Love, Orlac becomes almost peripheral to the story, with Lorre's deranged Dr Gogol taking centre stage in a crude attempt to fit the pattern of horror movies established by Universal Pictures with such films as The Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Man Who Laughs (1928) and Frankenstein (1931).  Orlac becomes a dull adjunct, blandly interpreted by Colin Clive, the actor who is now famous for playing Dr Frankenstein for Universal.  Frances Drake was woefully miscast as Gogol's love interest - her inability to simulate any emotion convincingly serves merely to expose the weaknesses in an uneven and implausible narrative.  Attempts to inject some humour into the film through Ted Healy's reporter and May Beatty's fussy housekeeper likewise fall flat and provide unwelcome distractions from the central theme of the film, an obsessive love that turns a decent, well-respected man into an abject, conscienceless fiend.

With such a mediocre script and uninspiring supporting cast, Mad Love could so easily have been a total misfire, but with director Karl Freund at the helm the film's many shortcomings end up being swept into the shadows, masked by Lorre's superb performance and some stunning work in the camera and lighting departments.  Gregg Toland, roped into the project when Freund fell out with his cinematographer Chester A. Lyons, is reputed to have reused what he learned on this film on Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941).  Although Freund was a more than capable film director, his main métier was that of cinematographer, his work including expressionist masterpieces such as Carl Boese's Der Golem (1920), F.W. Murnau's Der Letzte Mann (1924) and Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), and several classics of American cinema, notably Dracula (1931) - which he partly directed - and Key Largo (1948).  Mad Love was his last credit as a director, not quite up to the standard of his better regarded The Mummy (1932), which starred Boris Karloff.

On its first release in 1935 Mad Love was generally ill-received by the critics and was not a commercial success, although Peter Lorre was widely praised for his performance.  Today, the film is regarded with far greater affection and stands up well alongside some of Universal's better horror offerings, the central protagonist having far more substance and spine-chilling impact than the more familiar horror icons.  And whilst he may scare the life out of you in some scenes, there's much in Lorre's portrayal of the misshapen outcast that is genuinely heartbreaking.  "I, a poor peasant, have conquered science.  Why can't I conquer love?  Don't you understand?  You must be mine!" he insists in plaintive desperation, not having quite mastered the art of the chat-up line.

Film Synopsis

Dr Gogol, an eminent surgeon, is obsessively in love with the actress Yvonne Orlac, who is presently performing at the Théâtre des Horreurs in Paris.  Gogol is heartbroken when he learns that the object of his infatuation is married and intends giving up acting to live in England with her husband, the concert pianist Stephen Orlac.  As fate would have it, the latter is badly injured in a train accident which leaves his hands crushed beyond repair.  Gogol amputates Orlac's hands, replacing them with those of a recently guillotined knife-throwing murderer, Rollo.  Unable to earn his living as a musician, Orlac turns to his rich father for help, but when the old man turns him away Orlac spontaneously throws a knife at him.  The pianist confides in Gogol that his hands seem to have a life of their own, providing the surgeon with the germ of an idea to rid himself of his rival and claim Yvonne for himself...