Cinematographer Karl Freund (he shot "Dracula," having directed "The Mummy" a few years earlier), was called in to direct his countryman Lorre in this marvelous example of 30s horror. There's a more relaxed sense to this one, as if he's feeling more comfortable in the job - or perhaps just more comfortable working in English. The story comes from "The Hands of Orloc," and is an oft re-told tale of a pianist who loses his hands in an accident, only to have a brilliant scientist replace them with those of a murderer. Of course, he comes to believe his hands are urging him to kill, but it's the mad doctor obsessed with the wife of the pianist who's really to blame. I had forgotten that Colin Clive of "Frankenstein" played the pianist, and there are certain touches that make me wonder if his friend James Whale might have turned up on the set to help out here and there. Freund keeps his odd angles and other expressionistic elements, though.
