It also stars Frances Drake, Colin Clive and Ted Healy with Keye Luke. The story is the film adaption of the famous French novel by Maurice Renard, THE HANDS OF ORLAC.As incredible as it seems, star Isabel Jewell's scenes were cut entirely from the movie, and her name's on the poster!
The mad music is by the awesome musical giant, Dimitri Tiomkin, who also worked for The Ziegfeld Follies and won 4 Academy Awards! Here are a few of the films he composed the music for... LOST HORIZON, MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, TWIN BEDS, DILLINGER, CHINA'S LITTLE DEVILS, BLACK BEAUTY, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, TARZAN AND THE MERMAIDS, RED LIGHT, D.O.A., THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, HIGH NOON, THE HIGH AND THE MIGHTY, DIAL M FOR MURDER, GIANT, GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, RIO BRAVO, TOWN WITHOUT PITY and THE GUNS OF NAVARONE!So, let's bring in our teeny little Dungeon helper and 'GO' button pusher, that there, you got it, Rufus The Gnat!! Hoo-ray for Rufus! (He's so cute with his miniature ball cap and all) Anywho, Rufus is set to start today's Eariffic Earclip... Here's some... MAD LOVE!
The perfect place to start this weird tale is at the Theatre Of Horrors, where else?!
The strange but successful Dr. Gogol comes to every showing as he's secretly in love with it's beautiful star, Miss Yvonne... Looks like a fun place to work!
Dr. Gogol takes twisted delight in watching lovely Yvonne being tortured during the performance!
In actuality, she's married to famous pianist, Stephen Orlac, played by Dr. Frankenstein himself, Colin Clive!
Ironically, Stephen is riding on the same train as a convicted killer on route to his beheading when it wrecks, and, his will be the replacement hands used in the experimental surgery by Dr. Gogol...
Yvonne has nightmares about the incident and Dr. Gogol seems to be at the center of her anxiety.
In the meantime, the doctor has purchased her wax statue from the closed performance. He adjusts a mirror on his organ in order to keep an eye on her!
Dr. Frankenstein has now become... the Monster!
Stephen's million dollar hands are now worthless and the creditors swoop in for the kill!
The delusional doctor starts hearing and seeing things when in surgery, and, has to leave the room before he can stop flipping out!
Gogol uses this elaborate costume to try and fool Stephen into believing that he's going mad and is a murderer!
Yvonne comes face to face with her wax figure and a cockatoo in Gogol's secluded den!
Here's Glenn Beck after one of his shows... "I'm not insane, you're insane!!" 
Stephen, Reagan the reporter and the police show up at Gogol's house to find him strangling Yvonne, and, there's no time to get through the barred door to stop the madman! Look at the way Peter's feet are posed, details! He only agreed to do this part for a role in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT!
Wow, this ending is so damn cool! The worst curse in the world becomes the only thing that could have saved the day, since Stephen's hands were from a precision knife thrower, he's able to toss the blade through the bars and into Gogol's spine, and, just in time!!Stupid Tabonga Joke #167-C: Ahem, what color is a belch?.. Burple!
Ghoulnight Everbloody!!..
..be curious to know what Isabel Jewell played in this.To me she'll always be the young Seamstress who reduces me to tears on her way to the Guillotine in A Tale Of Two Cities..and the fortune teller in The Leopard Man..
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you've heard the theory that Pauline Kael advanced about this film in that Peter Lorre, down with his white cockatoo and shaved head was used by Orson Welles as a model for Charles Foster Kane in his later years in CITIZEN KANE!
ReplyDeletemy fav Peter movie.
ReplyDelete