The Hands of Orlac

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Christian K Probably my favorite silent film score I've heard so far. The production and design are excellent. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 10/14/24 Full Review Luca D Don't expect cabinet of caligari. Yes there is a plot twist and no it's not as good. It's actually rather dull considering how much build up there is. Naturally the cinematography and set design are very good. Probably won't watch again. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 08/02/23 Full Review Audience Member Robert Wiene is best known for directing The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but this is yet another masterwork. It's been remade four times, as Mad Love in 1935, The Hands of Orlac, Hands of a Stranger in 1962 and Body Parts in 1991. They all are versions of the 1920 novel Les Mains d'Orlac by French writer Maurice Renard. It also was kind of sort of remade as The Hand, The Beast With Five Fingers, The Crawling Hand, Les Mains de Roxana and segments in Dr. Terror's House of Horrors and Body Bags. Concert pianist Paul Orlac (Conrad Veidt) loses his hands in an accident only to receive a transplant of the hands from an executed murderer, a fact that begins to drive him insane. The surgeon tries to tell him that a person is not governed by hands, but by the head and heart. But Paul knows — he's now obsessed by the idea of killing someone. Now that he can no longer play piano, Orlac is destitute. He goes to ask his father for money, only to find him stabbed by the same knife the killer once used. It gets worse. He's unsure if he killed his father or not, so he goes to drink, and meets a man who claims to be the killer. Could the surgeon have transplanted a new body on the hands of the killer? Perhaps. But whomever the man is, he begins to blackmail Orlac. There's a twist which I won't give away — why spoil a movie that's 98 years old — but this movie is still a great watch so many years later. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member Brilliant piano player; train crash; "Save his hands, his hands are his life!"Heavy B&W expressionism. Crowds like ants, Bright searchlights, shining across and straight at the camera; silhouettes across landscapes. Huge rooms and shadow. The hands are, of course, fucked. The moment Veidt realises is magnificent, - the stillness, that tortured eyes, the moth. The dream face foreshadowing what is to come. Madness and agony. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/26/23 Full Review Audience Member After the masterpiece that was The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, I found The Hands of Orlac to be a bit of a disappointment. The glacial pace struck me as self-indulgent on the director's part. It lacked the pacing of Dr Caligari, which didn't overstay its welcome. The best parts of the film are its use of lighting to impart a creepy atmosphere which reflects the psychological state of the protagonist, whose hands have been replaced by those of a murderer after a disfiguring accident. I quite liked the highly dramatic and exaggerated stage-acting of the film's leading man, which is effective at making the viewer believe his fear of his own hands. This film is important for paving the way for future works of medical horror, such as Eyes Without a Face. Ultimately the film dragged on far too long and culminated with an ending that sent the supernatural edifice the film had spent 2 hours constructing crashing down. The silent german expressionist films work far better for me when they don't cleave too closely to reality and allow the shadows to envelop us. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/22/23 Full Review Audience Member A solo performance for the ages. Even his hands told their own story. A fun watch Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Hands of Orlac

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