The Hands of Orlac *** (1960, Mel Ferrer, Dany Carrel, Christopher Lee, Donald Wolfit, Felix Aylmer, Basil Sydney, Donald Pleasence) – Classic Movie Review 3110

The 1960 Anglo-French horror movie The Hands of Orlac is an intriguing third film of the famous Maurice Renard novel.

Co-writer/director Edmond T Gréville’s 1960 Anglo-French horror movie The Hands of Orlac is an intriguing and partly enjoyable if sometimes strained and lethargic third film of the famous Maurice Renard novel. It was previously filmed in Germany as The Hands of Orlac [Orlacs Hände] in 1924 with Conrad Veidt as Orlac and America in 1934 as Mad Love with Colin Clive as Orlac and Peter Lorre.

This time Mel Ferrer is the concert pianist Orlac who loses his hands in a plane crash and on to whom mad doctor Professor Volchett (Sir Donald Wolfit) grafts a murderous new pair which unfortunately happened to belong to an executed strangler. Ferrer can’t do much to be convincing in a strangler role that is outside his range and comfort zone, but Wolfit is ripely entertaining and Christopher Lee effortlessly dominates the film as Nero, the seedy Marseilles magician who blackmails Ferrer.

Claude Bolling’s jazz score is an asset. Gréville and John Baines adapt the Maurice Renard novel and Desmond Dickinson provides the black and white cinematography.

Also in the cast are Dany Carel, Felix Aylmer, Basil Sydney, Donald Pleasence, Lucile Saint-Simon, Anita Sharp Bolster, Campbell Singer, David Peel, Peter Reynolds and Manning Wilson.

Two versions were filmed back to back – French (105 minutes) and British (95 minutes).

Christopher Lee reminisced: ‘I had a marvellous part as a nightclub magician who blackmails a strangler. It was the first of many times that I made a film in two languages. We’d do a scene in English, then the cry “Version Française” would go up and we’d do it again and with rather more expression.’

Next version: the low-budget Hands of a Stranger (1962) directed by Newt Arnold. Also Body Parts (1991) draws on Maurice Renard’s story, plus The Beast with Five Fingers (1946), The Crawling Hand (1963), The Hand (1981) directed by Oliver Stone, and Les Mains de Roxana (2012).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3110

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