Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 315: Mon Nov 11

Mad Love (Freund, 1935): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.40pm


This film is screening as part of the BFI Gothic season and will be introduced by writer Xavier Aldana Reyes. The film will aslo be shown on November 16th. Details here.

Chicago Reader:
This atmospheric 1935 chiller, a remake of the silent expressionist film The Hands of Orlac, was directed by the great cinematographer Karl Freund, who shot Metropolis, The Last Laugh, and a dozen other classics, then spent his twilight years shooting I Love Lucy. Peter Lorre (in his first American role) plays a mad surgeon who grafts the hands of a psychopath onto a crippled concert pianist. The film is worth seeing for a number of reasons, but its latter-day reputation rests on Pauline Kael's theory that Gregg Toland, the photographer, used this film to try out the effects he later applied to Citizen Kane.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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