MovieChat Forums > The Hands of Orlac (1964) Discussion > Remake of Mad Love and coming out on Kin...

Remake of Mad Love and coming out on Kino DVD

posted 16 years ago by hamletmachin
8 replies | jump to latest

This film is a remake of the brilliant film Mad Love, starring Peter Lorre as Stephen Orlac, a mad surgeon who replaces the damaged hands of a pianist rival with the hands of a recently executed criminal who made his living as a knife thrower in a carnival and who killed his wife. The Hans of Orlac is coming out on DVD in 2008 from Kino and will be part of a set of four DVDs entitled German Expressionism Collection (The Hands of Orlac / The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari / Secrets of a Soul / Warning Shadows).

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

I'm sure you meant that Lorre played the part of Dr. Gogol (Colin Clive played Stephen Orlac).

Thanks for the information.

[–] phasmatrope 14 years ago

Ahh, but when is THIS remake going to be available on VHS/DVD again?? I've been on Netflix/Greencine for months, but it's never been available there. They either need to put it back in print, or someone should share it online!!

Hell, I'd pay money to rent it, if I actually thought I could find a damn copy...

[–] escalera-2 14 years ago

e-Bay has a couple of VHS copies available today. The one that the OP mentions is also listed.

[–] 35541m 14 years ago

For those of you who speak French and/or Spanish the French version of the film has been released on DVD in Spain.

[–] stefan-andersson72 14 years ago

Hi!

Thank you for this information! The Spanish title of the film is Las manos de Orlac. The DVD is from Divisa, letterbox (1.66), French and Spanish audio. Have you seen the DVD? There are excellent quality French-dubbed clips on YouTube.

The English language version was recently released on Italian DVD, title is Le mani dell´ altro (Hands of Another).

[–] 35541m 14 years ago

I've got the Divista DVD and I'm disappointed. It seems to have been censored as all of Dany Carel's bikini scenes (lasting several minutes) have been removed - maybe they were always removed from the french version but I'm not sure why they would have been in 1960. Print quality is fine and so is the French audio but the Spanish audio has some nasty crackling on it. No English subtitles though.

It has several scenes that are missing from the US Acme VHS (including a brief cameo from Hammer child star Janina Faye). Overall it runs 4m longer than the US VHS. Several scenes are in a different order to the US print as well.

mel ferrer gives a better performance in french than he does in english and chris lee manages a "merde" in one scene. However, I prefer the English cut which seems to be better edited. This version really edits down the climax a lot so that it is much less effective. A scene in which Ferrer visits a fairground has also been edited down to incomprehensibility. Replacing it we get about a 1m take of Orlac's wife walking in a garden, women putting out rubbish in Marseilles, a lot more of the maid and the old gardener at the villa and more shots of Ferrer driving his car.

[–] todmichel 14 years ago

Judging from your describtion, I'm sorry to tell you that the Divista DVD of the French-language version is visibly cut, as all the bikini scenes of Dany Carrel were (and still are) in the prints circulating in France. The "rushed climax" you mentions can also result from additional cuts, incidentally.

This French version was shown on local TV some years ago and I have a DVD-R of it. I also have a VHS of the English-language version, shorter (and probably cut by the BBFC during its initial release in UK).

Theorically the IMDb could make two different entries, as "Hands of Orlac" and "Les mains d'Orlac" are, technically speaking, two totally different movies, each one having been shot by a different director of photography. The cast is the same, yes, but each shot is different, even the ones without dialogue.

[–] stefan-andersson72 13 years ago

I finally got Les Mains d´Orlac, the French version, on a hard to find French DVD from René Chateau.

It has French audio, no subtitles, and runs 98 minutes (not 100 minutes as stated on the back cover). The print is letterboxed (around 1.66) and looks good, probably remastered, though not restored (some flickering at reel changes, a big black tram line onscreen in the final scene, and a few seconds of audio crackling). Overall it looks better than the screencaps in the review of the Divisa DVD at 10kbullets.com.

The print has all the Dany Carrel material, Janina Faye´s appearance, mrs. Orlac in the garden, the gardener, the maid, and a lot of Orlac driving his car.
The climax is rushed.

The print seems to be cut for censorship. For more details on this and the many differences between versions, see here:
http://www.cultmovieforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17498

The censored (?) scene with Lee and his flick knife (mentioned on the Cultmovieforums thread) can be seen on YouTube in a good quality clip with French dialogue.