Orlacs Hände (1924)
Directed by Robert Wiene

Film Review

One of the most influential films of early European cinema, Orlacs Hände (a.k.a. The Hands of Orlac) originated a whole sub-genre in horror that remains popular to this day, one in which amputated or transplanted body parts mysteriously take on a life of their own, with horrific consequences.  There are no dismembered extremities in Orlacs Hände but it still manages to be an effective chiller, making the most of its ghoulish concept and playing on our instinctive mistrust of science.  The film was based on Maurice Renard's 1921 novel Les Mains d'Orlac and was subsequently remade as Mad Love (1935) by Karl Freund and The Hands of Orlac (1960) by Edmond T. Gréville.

As commendable as the two English language remakes are, neither can match the original Austrian film for its relentlessly creepy atmosphere, which palpably conveys the anxiety and slowly mounting terror of the central protagonist as he allows fear and a cruel deception to drive him towards insanity.  The film's director, Robert Wiene, had already given us one landmark horror film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and here he offers a similarly nightmarish excursion into expressionistic fantasy.  Compared with the overt visual expressionism of Caligari, in which wildly distorted sets reflect the confused inner mental state of the protagonists, Orlacs Hände achieves its unsettling impact far more subtly, mainly through its lighting and camerawork (presaging classic film noir).  The sets are simply constructed and mostly unadorned, so it is the use of light and shade that reveals Orlac's turbulent state of mind - most vividly in a harrowing dream sequence.  As the pianist's reason submits to fear and neurosis, the shadows consume more of the light around him, as if to condemn him to a perpetual night.

Orlac's descent into insanity is given an intensely visceral force by Conrad Veidt's arresting performance.  Veidt's imposing physique and charisma had already been used by Wiene to monstrous effect on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, in which the actor had played the homicidal somnambulist Cesare, one of cinema's first great horror fiends.  As Orlac, Veidt seizes our pity and attention, somehow instilling in us the terror his character feels as he succumbs to the insane notion that he has been taken over by a psychotic killer.  When Vasseur miraculously appears towards the end of the film we might have smelt a rat, but so caught up are we in Orlac's derangement that we too succumb to his fantasy and allow our imagination to ride roughshod over our reason.  It is our willingness to be deceived, to be taken in by the wildly fantastic, that makes horror such an effective genre.  Like Orlac, we give in to our terrors far too easily - almost as if we delight in being afraid...

Film Synopsis

The world famous pianist Paul Orlac survives a horrific railway accident but his hands are damaged beyond repair.  Goaded by his wife Yvonne, a surgeon performs a remarkable transplant operation, giving Orlac a pair of hands taken from a corpse.  Orlac is convalescing when he learns that the previous owner of his hands was a murderer named Vasseur, who was recently guillotined for his crime.  The pianist is at once convinced that, like Vasseur, he will be compelled to kill.  He becomes increasingly deranged after his surgeon refuses to amputate the hands.  Because Orlac is unable to work, he and his wife are soon plunged into poverty.  With creditors hammering on her door, Yvonne pays a visit to Orlac's wealthy father, but the old man despises his son and refuses to help.  When Orlac later calls on his father he finds that he has been stabbed to death, with a knife that turns out to have Vasseur's fingerprints on it!  A short while later, Orlac encounters a man who claims to be Vasseur...