[7]

Peter Lorre stars as a doctor so obsessed with an actress (Frances Drake), that after a train wreck destroys her husband’s hands, Lorre offers to perform a transplant. Problem is, the new hands once belonged to a murderer, and old habits die hard… even for disembodied hands. Mad Love benefits from Lorre’s creepy performance and many exotic settings, including recreations of a famous Guignol playhouse where the ushers are masked monsters and the ticket salesman has no head. The plotting is far more intricate than most other horror films from its time (or beyond its time). For a while, the script feels like its all over the place, but rest assured that all of the disparate elements — including a wax doppelganger of the actress — come together in the end. My favorite scene is a clandestine meeting between the actress’ husband (Colin Clive from the Frankenstein films) and a masked, whispering character who reveals himself to be the previous owner of Clive’s murderous hands.

Director Karl Freund worked as cinematographer on Metropolis and Dracula before directing his first American film, The Mummy with Boris Karloff. Though he’d continue photographing films and television into the ’50s, Mad Love would be his last time in the directing chair.