Horror

Romance

Mad Love

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

United States of America

English

Peter Lorre

Frances Drake

Colin Clive

Ted Healy

Isabel Jewell

Sara Haden

Edward Brophy

Henry Kolker

Keye Luke

May Beatty

Ian Wolfe

Edward Lippy

Frank Darien

Murray Kinnell

Rollo Lloyd

Charles Trowbridge

Nell Craig

Robert Emmett Keane

Agostino Borgato

Billy Gilbert

Hooper Atchley

Maurice Brierre

Julie Carter

Harvey Clark

Michael Mark

Alphonse Ethier

Matty Roubert

Otto Hoffman

Cora Sue Collins

Sarah Padden

Mike Cantwell

Bernard Siegel

Kay English

Edward Norris

Mary Jo Mathews

Russ Powell

Rolfe Sedan

Sam Ash

Roger Gray

Christian J. Frank

Robert Graves

Earl Pingree

Theodore Lorch

Carl Stockdale

Ramsay Hill

Marc Loebell

Jacques Vanaire

Monte Vandergrift

Clarence Wilson

Karl Freund

Maurice Renard

Florence Crewe-Jones

P.J. Wolfson

John L. Balderston

David Snell

Gregg Toland

Chester A. Lyons

John W. Considine Jr.

Dimitri Tiomkin

Hugh Wynn

Cedric Gibbons

Norbert A. Myles

Dolph Zimmer

Dolly Tree

William A. Horning

Edwin B. Willis

Douglas Shearer

Oscar Radin

R. H. Bassett

Paul Marquardt

Charles Maxwell

Leonid Raab

Jack Virgil

Chilling.  

Brilliant surgeon Dr. Gogol is infatuated with Horror Theatre star Yvonne Orlac. After meeting her in person and realising that she only has eyes for her husband, the renowned pianist Stephen Orlac, he buys a life size mannequin of her and dreams of doing what Pygmalion did with Galatea. When Stephen is involved in an horrific train crash and has both his hands crushed beyond healing, Yvonne pleads with Gogol to help save his well being, he does, by amputating the crushed hands and grafting on the hands of a recently executed murderer, a murderer whose speciality was knives!

Mad Love is one of those amazingly old classics that is a hybrid of genre staples. At times it's surrealist and at others it's operating via a Grand Guginol pulse, whilst knowingly it laces the story with an uneasy comedic bent. Boasting camera work from Gregg Toland and Chester Lyons and directed by the impressive Karl Freund, this adaptation of Maurice Renard's novel is a chillingly memorable piece of work. Working off a plot that sees the bad Doctor driven by lustations rather than out and out insanity, Freund revels in slowly winding the coil until the spring that is Peter Lorre (Gogol) explodes (implodes), cloaking various scenes in telling shadows that themselves become integral to the plot. Peter Lorre is of course in his element, demented yet sympathetic, it's real hard to take your eyes away from his magnetic weirdness. Colin Clive as Stephen Orlac also puts in a performance of note, all twitchy nervousness and believable emotional torment, whilst Frances Drake more than adequately brings vulnerability to the centrifugal importance of Yvonne's emotional turmoil.

Weird and gorgeous, and incredibly well written, Mad Love holds up very well today as a horror/romance film of vast influential worth. So see it in the dark and marvel at its various moments of cinematic excellence. 8.5/10

Mad Love (1935) Original Trailer [FHD]

Rick Baker on MAD LOVE

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Mad Love

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Peter Lorre

Frances Drake

Colin Clive

Ted Healy

Isabel Jewell

Sara Haden

Edward Brophy

Henry Kolker

Keye Luke

May Beatty

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