An insane surgeon's obsession with an actress leads him to replace her wounded pianist husband's hands with those of a knife-throwing murderer.
Acting
Lorre's Gogol: sweaty, trembling, absolutely unhinged screen presence.
Direction
Freund's German Expressionist shadows still haunt every frame.
Production
The wax figure of Yvonne — uncanny valley before it had a name.
Director
Karl Freund
Peter Lorre
Doctor Gogol
Frances Drake
Yvonne Orlac
Colin Clive
Stephen Orlac
Ted Healy
Reagan
Isabel Jewell
Marianne (scenes deleted)
Sara Haden
Marie
Edward Brophy
Rollo
Henry Kolker
Prefect Rosset
Keye Luke
Dr. Wong
May Beatty
Françoise
Ian Wolfe
Henry Orlac, Stephen Orlac's Stepfather
Frank Darien
Lavin, Waxwork Proprietor (Uncredited)
Murray Kinnell
Charles, Theatre Official (Uncredited)
Rollo Lloyd
Varsac, Fingerprint Expert (Uncredited)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Peter Lorre learned his lines phonetically for his first Hollywood role after fleeing Germany; his trembling intensity is partly genuine exhaustion.
This is the first American 'mad doctor' film to explicitly borrow from Grand Guignol theater, establishing tropes still used in body horror today.
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