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Doctor Gogol (Peter Lorre), a brilliant scientist, loves actress Yvonne
(Frances Drake), but she simply isn't interested in him but loves her
husband, pianist Orlac (Colin Clive) instead. Then Orlac has an accident
in which he loses his hands, and Yvonne begs Gogol to cure him - so Gogol
gives him the hands of the recently executed knifethrowing killer Rollo
(Edward Brophy). During his time of recovery, Orlac, who doesn't even
know he has new hands, notices he can't properly play the piano anymore
but is one hell of a knifethrower. Often he throws knives even before he
notices what he's doing, too. This starts to worry Orlac, so he turns to
Gogol for advice - but Gogol suddenly has an infernal idea: He decides to
mentally suggest to Orlac he has been taken over by the hands of Rollo and
has turned into a knifethrowing killer just like him, then Gogol kills
Orlac's stepfather (Ian Wolfe), whom he hated, and suggests that Orlac did
it himself without knowing it. Orlac soon gives himself up to the police. Now
Yvonne comes to Gogol for advice, but instead of him she finds a wax
mannequin of herself, which she accidently breaks, and when Gogol comes
home from making Orlac believe he's a killer (in some very grotesque
outfit he needed to convince Orlac he is Rollo who has come back to the
grave, Yvonne takes the place of her wax mannequin to hear Gogol
confessing to everything. Eventually, she just can't keep still anymore,
but Gogol has all of a sudden gone crazy, and thus only thinks it's her
mannequin come to life (!), and for whatever reason he immediately wants
to strangle her ... but by then, the police has come to the conclusion
that Orlac hasn't killed his stepfather after all, and they now go after
Gogol, and when they find him strangling Yvonne, it's a knife thrown by
Orlac that kills Gogol and saves the day. On the surface, this
is one great-looking movie, it's realized by master cinematographer and
occasional director Karl Freund with a great sense for style and
atmosphere alike, and looks like one of the greatest gothics ever. The
thing is, the film looks great, but storywise it's a positive stinker:
Believability is continuously strained way beyond breaking point, all
of the plottwists are so ridiculous it's nothing short of pathetic, and
one can't credit the entire ensemble enough to make it through the
extended finale without bursting out in laughter. Oh, and by the way, can
anybody explain to me the narrative necessity of the American reporter (as
played by Ted Healy)? Not only does he seem out of tune with the rest of
the cast, he also seriously gets in the way of the film's pacing and
atmosphere - and if he's meant to be funny (I really don't know), it just
doesn't work. That all said, the film is still worth a look for its
visuals, but whoever calls it a classic clearly didn't bother to follow
its plot.
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