By Hank Reineke
The scenario of Mad
Love was adapted from Maurice Renard’s Grand
Guignol thriller of 1920 Les Mains d'Orlac (The Hands of Orlac). Renard (born 1875) was an author of
science-fiction and fantasy tales. Not
surprisingly, he was an ardent admirer of literary forebears Edgar Allan Poe
and H.G. Wells. Both of these authors –
similarly to Renard – contributed to the pulp publications of their day. Les Mains d'Orlac was
Renard’s third pulp to be published. It was also his most famous.
Renard’s novel tells the story of a world-famous pianist,
Stephen Orlac, whose hands are tragically severed in a train wreck outside
Paris. A surgeon, Dr. Gogol, grafts a
new set of hands on the gifted Orlac, having not advised the pianist his “new” hands
once belonged to a notorious – and recently guillotined - murderer. Orlac is, not unreasonably, frightened when
he discovers the grafts are seemingly directing him to do evil things, the
bidding of the devil.
Upon Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s announcement that esteemed director
and cinematographer Karl Freund was planning on shooting the first sound
version of The Hands of Orlac – a
silent featuring Conrad Veidt had already seen light as early as 1924 – the
studio’s publicity department went into full press. They excitingly described Renard’s yarn, as “the
weirdest and most novel of all thriller mystery stories.”
Freund very much wanted the Hungarian actor Peter Lorre
to play Doctor Gogol, the mad surgeon. Lorre had already established a reputation as an impressive figure in
European – and especially German – cinema. But following his international success as the psychotic child murderer
of Fritz Lang’s grim M (1931) and in Alfred
Hitchcock’s production of The Man Who
Knew Too Much (1934), executives at Columbia were eager to put the exotic Lorre
under contract for his first U.S. film assignment.
They were, perhaps, too
eager to bring him to Hollywood. Columbia had not yet found a project for him – and the actor’s command
of the English language was still in a nascent stage. Though offered a role in one of the studio’s adventure
dramas featuring action-star Jack Holt, Lorre demurred: he wasn’t interested in
such low-brow fare. He was pressing
Columbia to cast him in a more high-minded production, a film for the ages: an adaptation
of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Lorre was also insistent that esteemed
director Josef von Sternberg should helm the prospective epic.
There was a problem with this demand. Columbia’s co-founder and president, Harry
Cohn, wasn’t interested in such a project – nor was von Sternberg for that
matter. This resulted in Lorre sitting
in a state of contractual limbo of some “eight months,” at least by the actor’s
recollection. So it came as a relief
when MGM approached Cohn and Columbia asking for an inter-studio loan of Lorre
for Mad Love. Though not particularly a fan of horror
movies - then a recent box office rage thanks to Universal’s Frankenstein and Dracula pictures – the actor agreed to the one-off trade.
There was one condition of acceptance: that Columbia put Crime and Punishment on their production
schedule of 1935. Cohn agreed, without
enthusiasm, to greenlight the project. Though a New York Times interview
suggested Lorre’s subsequent relationship with Von Sternberg was a “happy one,”
the sentiment may not have been reciprocal. Though Von Sternberg would express admiration that Lorre was the only
actor on set who had actually read Crime
and Punishment, he felt the actor was completely miscast, “unsuitable” for
the role he was awarded.
In any event, on April 23, 1935, Variety reported Metro having secured Lorre’s loan from Columbia. Things moved quickly following that
announcement. By May 1st, MGM
had signed Ted Healy, Billy Gilbert and May Beatty to the cast. Screenwriter John L. Balderston was tapped to
freshen up the adaptive scenario of Guy Endore and the actual script of P.J.
Wolfson. Another source would report
that actress Francis Drake, on loan from Paramount, was also to be brought
aboard, as Yvonne, a Grand Guignol performer
in Paris and the primary target of Gogol’s romantic overtures and obsessions.
The final principal casting announcement was reported on
May 2 when Colin Clive – Dr. Henry Frankenstein himself - was conscripted to
play Yvonne’s husband, the amputee Stephen Orlac. With their star-studded cast in place, on May
3rd, Greg Toland was announced as a photographer on the project. Toland would work alongside both Chester Lyons
and director Freund. Freund was, of
course, the acclaimed cinematographer of such classics as Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931).
Freund was certainly taking the Mad Love project seriously. On
May 8, Variety reported he and Lorre
had visited California’s Lutheran Hospital, sitting quietly through several surgeries
“to get atmosphere” for the forthcoming production of Mad Love. A subsequent item
in the Los Angeles Times noted the
pair attended the gruesome surgeries as the invited guests of Dr. Albert and
Francis Alton. It was explained the
director and his star were to witness “the performing of several operations… in
order to study certain technical details of surgery for the picture.”
Though Lorre was pleased to be in front of cameras again,
he made it plain early on that he wasn’t a fan of horror pictures, steadfast in
his conviction that he would not be typecast as an actor of the genre. He needn’t have worried as a variety of interesting
work offers were coming his way. Just as
production on Mad Love was set to
roll, the actor was visited by the British producer Michael Balcon. Balcon had been spending a lot of time in
Hollywood looking to ingratiate himself with U.S. film executives. On May 6, 1935, Balcon announced he had managed
to sign Lorre and reigning boogeyman Boris Karloff for a pair of London-based projects
– both of which would come to fruition: Lorre
would act a second time for Hitchcock in Secret
Agent (1936), Karloff for Robert Stevenson’s The Man Who Changed His Mind (Gaumont-British Film Corporation,
1936).
With some of the film earnings and personal savings he
had accrued, it was reported that the savvy, self-starting Lorre had recently purchased
no fewer than three stage plays of European origin for development as possible
Hollywood films. The scripts, it was
noted, would be peddled to producers only “on the condition that he is spotted
in if and when made.” But first the
famously diminutive, pop-eyed actor, once described by Charlie Chaplin, as “the
world’s greatest living character actor,” had to get through the filming of the
Mad Love chiller.
Members of the Hollywood press were invited to visit the
set on May 8, the first day of shooting. Gossip wag George Lewis who, like
Lorre, was no fan of horror movies, arrived just as poor Francis Drake was
trussed to a wheel and branded with a hot iron at a grim Grand Guignol staging at Paris’s Théâtre
des Horreurs. Lewis made
note that Freund appeared “quite cheerful” as the macabre scenario played out
before him. Freund trumpeted his picture
was to be “the most colossal horror yet presented to the civilized world.” But following the preview screening of Mad Love on July 1, 1935, critic Lewis remained
nonplussed, sniffing the film only “capable of scaring to death at least a few
timid people.”
A more savvy reporter from the Oakland Tribune, also in attendance at the first-day shoot, saw MGM’s renewed interest in horror
pictures as the studio’s attempt to give Universal “a little competition in the
matter of fantastic films and regain, if possible, the position it held when
Lon Chaney was alive and Tod Browning in his prime.” Both Universal and Paramount had done very
well with their recent chillers, and MGM sensibly wanted a little taste.
Nothing if not a method actor, Lorre consented to shave
his head for the role of Dr. Gogol. Such
a dramatic shorn required the actor to visit the studio barbershop every
morning prior to shooting. Resting
between takes on set, Lorre needed to apply a wet chamois cloth on his eggshell
skull to protect him from the burn of the hot klieg lights hanging
overhead.
The consummate cinematographer, Freund expertly executed
an eerie monochrome contrasting of “hard lights and shadows” to create a moody
and mysterious ambience - one befitting Gogol’s personal gallery of
horrors. Continuing to do his part, the
roly-poly Lorre, thinking himself too heavy-set to play the mad surgeon
convincingly, went on a crash diet. On
alternate days, the actor would eat only fruit, then vegetables, then dried
meat, then boiled potatoes. He reportedly
dropped a total of nine pounds in four days’ time.
One journalist would go on to describe Lorre as “the
finest scarer of woman-and-children and even grown up men since Lon
Chaney.” Which was high praise
indeed. Chaney’s reputation in and around
Hollywood was as exalted as ever despite his having passed on August 26, 1930,
age 47. Though Lorre graciously
acknowledged the compliment, he nevertheless was of the opinion that grotesque
make-up appliances often disguised “an excuse for an ability to act… An actor
should find his expressions in his naked face.” The one exception to that rule, Lorre then sensibly corrected, was the
great Chaney since “He was an artist.” As a recent transplant to Tinseltown it was best not to kick up dust at
the expense of one of Hollywood’s most mourned and respected figures.
Despite Lorre’s disdain of make-up appliances, there was
a lot of press in the lead-up to the production of Mad Love that the filmmakers planned on using a series of Grand Guignol style masks in their
upcoming production. “Intensive
experiment went into the perfection of the new masks,” noted the Los Angeles Times, suggesting such
ghoulish set decorations were “often suggested in fiction but never before
worked out on a practical basis.” Such
artful masks are scattered about and
used as macabre decoration for the Théâtre
des Horreurs sequences near the film’s beginning. Otherwise they play little role in the
storyline.
June 15 would mark the final day of shooting, the
Hollywood press again invited to attend. It was a less exciting day to be on set, the film crew mostly finishing
up on various insert shots, the journalists watching Lorre’s double, “Raspy” Rasputin,
menacing Drake’s distressed double. The
genuine Lorre was on set as well, pacing about in silence, occasionally
breaking a studious concentration to relax and joke with members of the crew
with whom he had become friendly.
Following an industry preview of the film at Glendale’s
Alexander Theatre, Billboard was
certain Mad Love would score at the
box office, citing the “masterful performance” of Lorre in his U.S. film
debut. The critic did astutely rue, “the
significance of this grotesque film is likely to be obscured by its flimsy
title. It will take a change of title or heavy promotion to gain for this eerie
but well-done production the grosses it warrants.” This title change did, in fact, transpire.
In certain markets the title was changed to The Hands of Orlac in the hope of
increasing audience interest and box office revenue. With a production budget of just over
$217,000, domestic receipts of Mad Love
had totaled a disappointing $164,000. Some blamed the unrepresentative title of Mad Love for the film’s underwhelming performance. It
was believed that the audiences who routinely flocked to horror pictures passed
on Mad Love due to bad marketing. The title Mad
Love suggested the film was merely one-more dreary Hollywood romantic
drama.
London’s Picturegoer
thought the film a serviceable thriller, but little more. Acknowledging that Lorre’s performance
carried the production, the film otherwise “fails to grip to any great
extent.” Variety’s opinion was much the same. Suggesting Lorre’s role as the villainous Dr.
Gogol was an ideal one for the actor’s American film bow, “the results in
screen potency are disappointing. Being
a chiller, much will depend on exploitation.” The trade predicted Mad Love would “probably will do fair
biz on the whole.”
Subsequent reviews of Mad
Love were mostly positive, though some thought the grim subject matter too
sadistic and intense for the impressionable young and any patron with a weak
constitution. Lorre’s notices were uniformly
positive, one critic writing – likely to the actor’s chagrin – that he had managed
a spine-chilling performance both “menacing
and sinister. Karloff and Lugosi,
erstwhile nonpareil bogey-men of the movies, have a doughty rival.” Interestingly, Mad Love was released within weeks of Universal’s faux-Poe
thriller, The Raven featuring Messrs.
Karloff and Lugosi. Such release date synchronicity
might have hurt the box-office receipts of both films. There was, apparently, only so much sadism audiences
could sit through in the summer of 1935.
This Warner Bros. Archive Collectionregion-free issue of Mad Love is presented in 1080p High
Definition 16x9 with an aspect 1.37:1 and in DTS-HD Master mono audio. The transfer is excellent. As is often the case with these Warner
Archive Blu ray issues, there’s no abundance of special features offered
outside of the film’s trailer and a highly informative second-life commentary track courtesy of
Steve Haberman (screenwriter of Dracula: Dead and Loving It), ported over from the
six-film Hollywood Legends of Horror
Collection DVD box set of 2006.
Click here to order from the Cinema Retro Movie Store.