THE HANDS OF ORLAC is an exceptional German silent film and was remade in Hollywood just a few years later as MAD LOVE (starring another German, Peter Lorre). Both are well worth seeing, as they are quite different in how they portray the leading character.

The film begins with a pianist (Conrad Veidt) having his hands tragically severed in an accident. However, in an amazing bit of surgery, the hands of an executed man are grafted seamlessly onto Orlac. Oddly, however, the pianist is haunted by the ghost of this dead man and the hands seem to have a mind of their own--with a strong desire to kill!!

During all this film, Veidt overacts horribly--even for a silent film. In many ways, he acts much like the main character from THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI--a famous German Expressionist film made almost a decade earlier. For a 1919 film, this wasn't a problem, but by 1924 this sort of acting was becoming a bit passé. While not bad, you can't deny that he over-emotes here and there.

Despite this over-emoting, the film is quite exciting and well-paced. The horror film has some wonderful twists and turns that keep the audience guessing and the excitement never lets up until the very end. One of the better silent films and fortunately the DVD print is top quality.

"Orlacs Hände" or "Orlac's Hands" is a black-and-white silent film from over 90 years ago. It was directed by Robert Wiene, the man behind the famous Caligari movie. In its original version, the film ran roughly 90 minutes, but the new version I saw has over 110 minutes, probably because of less frames per second. Anyway, Conrad Veidt is one of Germany's most known silent film actors, so he certainly can carry a film like this. His most known role is probably in "Casablanca". In my opinion, the idea was nice in here. A piano player has a terrible accident and loses both his hands. A surgeon gives him a new pair, but these are from a convicted and executed murderer. By now, you probably know that this is a mystery/horror film. The ending just takes it to another level. Yes it was fairly absurd that somebody else got the killer's head and now this was some meat puzzle story, but at least something interesting happened. This thrill near the end, however, is not enough to sit through almost 2 hours of this film. I am generally not the biggest silent film fan, so my opinion may be biased, but i found it a boring watch for the most part. This film did not get me interested in silent movies. Not recommended.

I thought they would never get the guy out of the train after the crash. There is ten minutes of useless footage. Of course, it is an early silent film, so I was OK with the long dramatic poses. Conrad Veidt is about as spooky as one can be and his wife is a close second. I wonder why they never mentioned the procedure for putting another man's hands in place of his. He is suddenly in the hospital and knows all about it. This is a classic horror piece that has been done many times. In a later incarnation, the hands get up and act on their own, sort of like the Addams family Thing. At times it is hard to follow because there is virtually no sound editing. As a matter of fact, they could have trimmed twenty to thirty minutes, had a relatively long film, and made it much more accessible. I love silent films and don't regret wading through this one.