The inimitable Peter Lorre plays Dr. Gogol, an incredibly gifted surgeon. He has a weakness, however. He has fallen for an actress whose being rules his life. When she tells him she is married he is crestfallen. Her husband is a renowned classical pianist. He is injured in a train wreck, his hands crushed. Lorre works to cure him, but until he transplants the hands of a murderer, a knife thrower, the man cannot be whole. Of course, he now has the hands of a murderer and they want to kill, using knives. He thinks he will get the girl, but he disgusts her. Her rejection sends him over the edge. Great vehicle for the wonderful Lorre as he expresses madness and pain. Very well done horror tale.

One thing about MGM even their B pictures looked like A products. No wonder it was called the Tiffany of studios. A modest programmer like Mad Love has a bit of elegance to it.Peter Lorre all bug eyed when he's around Frances Drake stars in Mad Love. Basically he's as obsessed with her as the fans who killed Barbara Colby and Rebecca Schaefer. When actress Drake's concert pianist husband Colin Clive is injured necessitating amputation of his hands, the skill of Lorre with techniques way into the future attaches the hands of murderer Edward Brophy who had a nice skill of his own with throwing knives.Is it the hands making Clive want to take up knife throwing? Lots of debate about that in the film and in the story, the Hands Of Orlac on which the film is based.Lorre was always great at playing disturbed people starting right at the beginning of his career with Fritz Lang's M. Ted Healy is in this film as a rather bumptious American newspaperman. But this one is really Lorre's film as a cosmic joke of immense proportion is played on him.

Apparently this movie is a remake of the Austrian silent "The Hands of Orlac" which I really want to see now since I thought "Mad Love" was awesome. This is mainly thanks to the role of Peter Lorre as the creepy looking and acting Dr. Gogol. That gaze in his eyes, that laugh when he disguised himself as the murderer that was insanely good. Another good role was for Gogol's housekeeper played by May Beatty together with her parrot putting some humor in an otherwise very serious and dark movie. Gogol's love interest Yvonne is played by Frances Drake, beautiful actress of who the doctor keeps a wax statue in his home. At the start of the movie I really thought that statue was a real person, so real it looked. The scene where Yvonne pretends to be the statue to fool Gogol is just awesome. The story is simple but really effective.

Screen legend Peter Lorre makes a grand American debut in the starring role of this solid shocker, a rare contribution by MGM to the horror film cycle of the 1930s. He's utterly off his rocker, yet not completely unsympathetic in a story that's just one of many adaptations of "The Hands of Orlac" to be filmed over the years.Colin Clive of "Frankenstein" fame plays Stephen Orlac, a renowned concert pianist whose hands are crushed in a horrible train accident. What's a piano player to do without his hands? Stephens' wife Yvonne (beautiful Frances Drake) approaches eminent surgeon Dr. Gogol (Lorre) to work his magic. Well, what Gogol does is take the hands of a recently executed murderer (Edward Brophy) and attach them to Stephen's arms. Soon Stephens' hands seem to be acting on their own and developing a flair for throwing knives. This is perfect for Gogol, who now sees a way to worm his way into the life of Yvonne, an actress in Grand Guignol productions whom he's lusted after for a long time.Lorre is fantastic in the role of the demented Gogol. He's a delight to watch, especially in one memorable sequence where Gogol, in disguise, is attempting to influence Stephens' fragile mind. Gogol is a pretty twisted guy; not only does he get turned on by the atrocities in Yvonnes' plays, but he's a regular attendee at public executions. The rest of the cast is fine, with Clive in a slightly more restrained performance than the one he gave as Henry Frankenstein. It's nice to see Keye Luke in a small role, but the comedy relief by co-stars Ted Healy (as a stereotypically pushy reporter) and May Beatty (as Gogols' maid) is just too much. Talented cameraman and cinematographer Karl Freund ("The Mummy"), in what was unfortunately his last directorial credit, guides the whole thing with admirable style. Here he does a great job of showing us just why the concept of this story has endured for so long.Any fan of the studio genre pictures from this period is advised to seek out "Mad Love". It's good macabre fun - well paced, well shot, and well edited, and an impressive showcase for a very distinctive actor.Eight out of 10.