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Film: The Hands of Orlac (Orlacs Hände)
Year: 1924
Director: Robert Wiene
Writer: Louis Nerz
Starring: Conrad Veidt, Alexandra Sorina and Fritz Strassny
Review:
This was a movie that I learned about after watching The Beast with Five Fingers. These are both based off the same novel by Maurice Renard. It’s been a while since I saw that film. I know that I enjoyed it. That movie caused me to seek out the different variations on it, including this earlier take on the novel. It also doubles as a Centennial Club selection as well as a Foray through the Fours.
Synopsis: a world-famous pianist loses both hands in an accident. When new hands are grafted on, he doesn’t know they once belonged to a murderer.
Now for this movie here, we have a married couple. Yvonne Orlac (Alexandra Sorina) is awaiting her husband to come home from his latest tour. Paul is the pianist from the synopsis. On his way home, there is a mishap that results in a train accident. Yvonne went to meet him at the station, but upon hearing about the tragedy, her driver takes her to the location where it happened. There is mayhem and death. She finds her husband inside one of the cars. He’s alive but hurt.
This lands him in the hospital with a broken skull and maimed hands. Dr. Serral (Hans Homma) learns about what happened to his friend. This coincides with the same day that a thief and murderer, Vasseur, is set to be executed. Dr. Serral sees an opportunity to help Paul. It will be an experimental treatment though.
Yvonne knows what was done. Paul hasn’t learned the truth yet. When he comes to and the bandages are removed, he sees that his hands aren’t the ones that he’s born with. This makes him concerned that he’ll no longer be able to play the piano. He also gets a start when in his hospital room he sees a floating head through a window into his room. It belongs to Fritz Kortner. He believes this to be the original owner of the hands he now has.
Paul then goes about learning who they belonged to. This brings him to learn of Vasseur and the crimes he was executed for. Paul feels like he can’t control them and that they want to do bad things like the original owner. This leads to him sleepwalking. Yvonne is concerned as money starts to run out. This leads her to Paul’s father, who despises his son. There is also an encounter with a character by the name of Nera who might know more about their situation. Murders start to happen again, with Vasseur’s fingerprints and knife being used. Paul can’t account for everything he does and starts to wonder if his hands have continued the work of the original owner.
That is where I’m going to leave my recap and introduction to the story. We don’t have the deepest one here and I learned through bonus features on the DVD that I have, this story took the basic premise, a bit of the subplots, but ultimately cut quite a bit to create this movie. This runs for 105 minutes. I could only imagine how long this would be if they kept more from the original story in.
Where I want to start will be with the character of Paul Orlac. This is a study about him. Since this is a silent film, we need title cards and acting to convey what it needs to. Having Veidt in this role is perfect. He does so much with facial expressions and body language that it worked. What is interesting is that we don’t get much of a baseline. This tends to be a problem for me, but I think just setting up that he’s a famous concert pianist who can no longer play. That makes sense and we don’t need more than that. It is from there that we see this character descend into madness.
There’s an interesting commentary from this point about our body no longer working as it once did. I could see an allegory here to getting old and arthritis or similar ailments taking away things that we used to be able to do. This happens much more quickly in this work. I’d also say that this movie is saying that it could be in the head of Paul. I did read in the special features as well that this last bit is a concept from the novel. If this happened to Yvonne, she would be strong enough to overcome. Paul on the other hand is weaker of mind and lacks confidence so it makes sense that he’d descend into the madness that he does. I found this concept to be fascinating.
Now there’s another angle here with the character of Nera. He meets with their maid of Regine and she gives him the knife that belonged to Vasseur. Nera also seeks out Paul to tell him that he’s framed him. Money is demanded for extortion since the fingerprints at the scene belong to Vasseur and these hands are the ones that Paul now has. There is a bit of sci-fi here how this plays out, but it is still grounded. It’s something you’d find in a detective story so I can work with it. There’s also a built-in motive for Paul that would make him a suspect as well. Since he’s already going crazy, he buys in that during a sleepwalking incident or blacking out, he did kill this man. I thought that worked.
That should be enough for the story so I’ll go over to the rest of the acting. I’ve already said that Veidt is great here. I also thought that Sorina was good as his wife. She cares so much about him and wants to help. She is also afraid of him, wondering what he would do with these hands. Fritz Strassny was good as the mean father of Paul. He’s good at setting the stage to the climax. His butler, Paul Askonas, works in his minor role. I also like Cartellieri, Homma and Kortner with how they fit into the story.
All that is left then is filmmaking. I thought that the cinematography here was good. We are early in the history of cinema so they’re limited to what they could do. What is interesting is that Weine is known for his work in expressionism. We get that here, but on a lesser scale. This is more grounded while taking concepts from that movement. There are in camera effects that we get to show that Paul is haunted by the specter of his hands. This is in his head though. I still like what they do there. Other than that, this isn’t the soundtrack that was synced up originally. I did like what was done though as it fit what was needed. If I have a gripe, this is too long. I think this could be condensed to around 90 minutes, still convey what was needed and run tighter.
In conclusion, this is a solid film from early cinema. It explores interesting ideas that still work today. I like seeing this character of Paul lose the ability of his hands and then sink into madness worrying about the ones that he now has. Veidt is great here at bringing the character to life. The rest of the cast push him to where he ends up. I thought that filmmaking was good. My only gripe there is that this runs too long. Trimming this would still get across what they need to while running tighter. This is one that I can only recommend if you are interested in the history of cinema. I enjoyed my time here and seeing another film featuring Wiene and Veidt.
My Rating: 8 out of 10