The Hands of Orlac (1924)

By CinemaSerf

This is a great amalgam of genres that shows off Conrad Veidt's skills to a tee. He portrays a classical pianist ("Orlac"), renowned throughout the world until he is involved in an horrific train crash and only just survives. His hands, however, do not. His distraught wife "Yvonne" (Alexandra Sorina) implores the doctors to do something, so eventually a pair of hands are grafted onto his arms. It doesn't take "Orlac" long to realise that these new hands have a life of their own, that their previous owner ("Vasseur") was a ruthless killer and that the hands rather enjoyed their previous work! When his father is found dead - all the fingerprints point to his errant hands, and together with the sceptical police they must get to the bottom of the mystery before the hands strike again... A small cast work well with Maurice Renard's cleverly devised novel and Robert Wiene keeps the pace moving along skilfully enough. The print I saw could have done with some more light. At times the cast began to resemble a gaggle of pandas - but that wasn't too distracting from this well executed crime thriller that I really quite enjoyed.