One of the most famous headlines in the history of the New York Post (if not print journalism, period) is “HEADLESS BODY FOUND IN TOPLESS BAR”. A journalist played by Ted Healy in 1935’s Mad Love doesn’t have quite the same wit in creating headlines, as he envisions a front page topped with “MAN WITHOUT HEAD KILLS RICH JEWELER”. Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
What’s odd is, given the info Healy has at that point, what he has composed is true. A jeweler played by Ian Wolfe was killed by a knife in the back, and the police suspect Wolfe’s son, a former concert pianist played by Colin Clive.
Clive, however, is not headless. Instead, he only has hands that were those of a murderer after he lost his own in a train crash. The headless angle is per a ruse perpetuated by Peter Lorre, the surgeon who did Clive’s operation. Now the doctor is trying to drive Clive mad, thinking he can get Frances Drake, Clive’s wife, on the rebound. So, Lorre puts metal arms over his own, and a brace over his neck, and tells the man is the donor of those hands. Never mind that murderer went to the guillotine, Lorre, in this ruse, convinces Clive Lorre’s brilliant surgeon actually succeeded in reattaching the man’s head to his body.
If that sounded crazy, convoluted and a bit hard to follow, then I have succeeded in conveying what it is like to watch this picture. It is hard to believe it is only 68 minutes long because it packs a whole lotta crazy into that brief timespan.
It starts out with an announcer addressing the audience over black screen, warning us that “now is the time to back out if…well, warned you.” In an audio commentary accompanying the movie on the Warner Archive blu-ray, we learn a nearly identical intro had originally been intended for the beginning of 1931’s Frankenstein, in which Clive played the titular doctor.
Next are opening credits, where each list of names and titles has a window in the background. A major surprise is when a fist smashes through the last of these, revealing this last set of credits was actually painted on the glass.
The film is set in Paris, and it opens, appropriately, in a Grand Guignol attraction called The Théâtre de Horreurs. Lorre goes there every night to see Drake perform in the grisly play which culminates in her apparently getting a hot iron applied to her groin. Lorre, watching the performance from the balcony, clearly enjoys this in a disturbing manner.
He doesn’t react well when he discovers she has married and is retiring from the theatre that night. At the after-show farewell party for her, everybody there receives a slice of cake, a glass of champagne and a kiss from her. Her harsh reaction to having to kiss Lorre brings his spirits even lower.
It isn’t a good sign when wax statues of the cast of sent off to be melted won, but Lorre bribes the movers to take that of Drake to his home. It is at home he believes his love can transform this idol into the real thing, believing himself Pygmalion and the statue Galatea. Those who know their mythology will know the story. I don’t, so I had to look it up later. Also, I wondered about the scene from the play which so stirred Lorre, and whether he would find out the hard way he shouldn’t try that with his wax Drake effigy.
He seems to be about that crazy, as we learn he never misses an opportunity to see an execution. In this case, the condemned is murderous circus performer Edward Brophy, who is an expert knife thrower. Brophy makes the most of his short time on the screen. He seems to be in awe of Lady Guillotine as he takes his final steps: “Boy! Ain’t that something!”
Then there’s the train accident which takes Clive’s hands, only for Lorre to have a brainstorm and steal the hands from Brophy’s corpse and do a transplant operation.
Despite having a full recovery, Clive is unable to play the piano. He has an interesting line while listening to a phonograph of him playing pre-accident: “Wonderful invention, the photograph. Keeps a man alive long after he’s dead.” His frustration leads to him losing his temper and, grabbing the nearest object, he throws a fountain pen hard enough to drive the tip into wood.
This element of horror is something that has been done time and time again—a transplant operation where the donor is a killer leads to the recipient becoming a killer, Heck, even this picture is a remake of 1924’s The Hands of Orlac. What is an interesting twist is Clive, despite having the knife-throwing expertise of the original owner of his mitts, is not motivated to become a killer. Instead, it is only Lorre’s bizarre scheming which convinces the man he has committed a murder.
The film is innovative in both its camera setup and its design. There is an obvious influence of German Expressionism, with at least of couple of sets seemingly bereft of right angles. A couple of montage sequences also feel reminiscent of such films as Fritz Lang’s best work of silent, and early sound, cinema.
One of those key films was M, which starred Lorre. He only had to speak in German for that production, while he was still struggling with English here and it shows. Curiously, his line deliveries were a bit more convincing in the previous year’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, and he had to learn his English lines phonetically for that picture. One example of his clumsiness is when he clearly says “al-hohl” when he meant to say “alcohol”. Still, he is obviously having a great time in this movie and is perfectly cast.
Lorre is obviously the primary reason to seek out this film, though the rest of the cast fares well. Drake is quite good, and I found intriguing the moments where the actual actress plays the wax model of herself as perceived by Lorre. Sara Haden gets some good lines as Drake’s maid. Clive is curiously functional, at best, and it is telling he is not the most fondly remembered element of Frankenstein or Bride of Frankenstein. May Beatty is amusing as Lorre’s housekeeper, especially when she sees the real Drake and is unconvincing the wax statue upstairs managed to escape. That only happens because she is drunk, and Beatty plays much too broadly in those moments. Similarly, Healy really chews the scenery, though he is given some good business in his few moments on the screen. In real life, the man was the initial force which eventually led to the formation of The Three Stooges.
There is one final aspect of the production I want to single out, and is the curiously recurring motif of headlessness, which is especially odd when considering the part of the body most relevant to the plot are hands. And yet, among the imagery in the first scene is a coat check girl in a costume making her appear to be sans head. Then there’s the party for Drake, where the cake is topped with a tiny guillotine. I would like to see one of those baking challenge shows try to make such an item entirely out of edible materials. Bonus points if it is a functioning piece of equipment. Lastly, there will be the real one which will take the life of Brophy.
Mad Love could only have been made because it snuck under the wire of the implementation of the production code. Of the “pre-code” cinema I have seen, this is the one the wildest films. A film released shortly thereafter would not possibly have the violence in this or the sexual suggestiveness. Of the latter, I was surprised when Wolfe suggests to his son that his actress wife should prostitute herself: “Her pay may be small. But maybe she could [knowing chuckle] supplement her earnings…” And then there are Clive’s new hands, with their highly visible stitches, are somehow more gruesome than Frankenstein from four years earlier, possibly because the imagery is of something more realistic than a reanimated corpse made of composite parts.
Dir: Karl Freund
Starring Peter Lorre, Francis Drake, Colin Clive
Watched on Warner Archive blu-ray