Mad Love (Karl Freund, 1935)

Famed cinematographer Karl Freund also directed several films but decided in the mid-1930s, after years of pulling double duty, to set his directing career aside and focus full-time on cinematography. He said goodbye to directing with a bang. Mad Love is one of the great '30s horror films (though it received mostly poor reviews at the time), with a memorably creepy Peter Lorre performance in his first American movie, iconic images throughout, and a surprisingly cohesive structure for what was a troubled production behind the scenes, with multiple power struggles.

Karl Freund, an Austrian whose family moved to Germany when he was 10, worked in the German film industry as a newsreel cameraman, cinematographer, and director of a few silent films and several shorts before emigrating to Hollywood in 1929, a fortunate and probably lifesaving move for Freund, a Jewish man. He was able to get his daughter out of Germany in 1937 and bring her to the States, but his ex-wife refused to move and stayed behind. She died in a concentration camp five years later.

Freund made a successful transition to Hollywood after working on some of the greatest German silent films and was an in-demand cinematographer from the time he arrived in the States until the late '50s, when he concluded his career working on I Love Lucy. His first Hollywood film as director was also a horror movie, The Mummy. Mad Love is not as opulent as The Mummy but is otherwise as visually memorable and punches a lot harder.

Based on the same source novel by Maurice Renard as the silent horror classic The Hands of Orlac, from Cabinet of Dr. Caligari director Robert Wiene, Mad Love retains the basic story but otherwise goes its own weird way. It begins with stage actress Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake) appearing in a Grand Guignol-style play. Tonight is her last performance, as she is about to retire from the stage to enjoy a quiet life of domestic bliss with her husband of one year, concert pianist Stephen Orlac (Frankenstein's Colin Clive). The early Hollywood movies always insist that a woman with a successful career she loves can't wait to throw it all aside to cheer on her man. Not too plausible, but Drake makes you believe it.

Obsessed Yvonne fan Gogol (Peter Lorre), a famous surgeon when he's not stalking Yvonne, is not too happy about her retirement from the stage, but he flips his damn wig when he finds out she's married. He pays a crew member big bucks to deliver to his home a wax statue of Yvonne that was displayed in the theater lobby. He half-believes he can will this statue into existence. Gogol lives the bachelor life with an elderly alcoholic maid named Francoise (May Beatty) and her pet parrot, which is frequently perched on her shoulder. As we find out in later dialogue, Gogol has never experienced the company of women. He's a proto-incel with a sick Yvonne obsession.

Returning by train from a concert, Stephen is injured when the train derails. He's okay, but his hands aren't. Doctors fear they may have to amputate, ending his music career forever. In a panic, Yvonne convinces Gogol to operate on her husband. Gogol convinces the local authorities to give him the body of a recently executed man, convicted murderer Rollo (Edward Brophy), for experimentation. (Rollo was transported to his execution on the same ill-fated train that Stephen was on, but the murderer made it through the accident with no injuries.) These authorities have no idea that Gogol is going to do the ol' one-two hand-switcheroo from Rollo to Stephen. That's some advanced 1935 surgery, I tell you what.

Long story slightly shorter, Rollo was a circus knife-thrower prior to his murder spree. Post-surgery and recovery, Stephen finds his piano playing is not as good as it used to be, but he's acquired some incredible knife-throwing skills and a quick temper along with it. When Stephen finally puts two and two together, Gogol comes up with a plan so crazy that it just might work to get Stephen out of the way and Yvonne in his arms.

It's pretty surprising that Mad Love turned out so well because the production was a bit of a drama magnet. Producer John W. Considine, Jr., fought constantly with Freund over creative control of the project, and seven different people contributed to the writing or rewriting of the screenplay, four of them uncredited. The final screenplay wasn't finished until three weeks into the shooting. Considine also insisted on his preferred cinematographer, Chester A. Lyons, while Freund insisted on Gregg Toland. (Toland's later credits include The Grapes of Wrath, Citizen Kane, Ball of Fire, and The Best Years of Our Lives and probably would have included several dozen more classics if he hadn't died from a coronary thrombosis at the age of 44. Lyons had a less distinguished career, shooting mostly quickie B-pictures. He also died young, at age 51, the year after Mad Love's release.) A compromise was finally reached, pleasing no one, in which Toland got to be the cinematographer for eight working days with Lyons shooting the rest of the film.

Freund, obviously a great cinematographer in his own right, micromanaged the position for both Lyons and Toland, and cast members have remarked that Freund seemed like he was trying to be the director and the cinematographer. Meanwhile, Freund and Considine fought through the whole production, with cast and crew members remarking that Considine kept trying to usurp the director's role from Freund despite the producer not knowing his ass from a hole in the ground when it came to directing (my paraphrasing). The production went one week over schedule, and the title changed multiple times before Mad Love was chosen.

Somehow, Mad Love's behind-the-scenes insanity didn't tarnish the finished product, which is an expressive, atmospheric, weird, funny, and creepy little movie with a great Peter Lorre performance at its center (though the movie received a negative critical response on initial release, as mentioned above, Lorre's work in it was generally praised). The admittedly ridiculous plot is played straight, but the movie does have a decent sense of humor and knows how to balance its lighter and darker elements. The characters all have real personality and spark, including the convicted murderer, who is portrayed as a swell, goofy, friendly guy undone by a hair-trigger temper and impeccable knife skills. His final conversation before his execution is to chat with a newspaper reporter about the nearly completed Hoover Dam.

Another surprisingly positive element worth mentioning is the character of Dr. Wong, played by Keye Luke. Wong is a fellow surgeon at Gogol's clinic, and he's presented as no more and no less than a competent doctor doing his job well. It's a character that could have been played by any actor and is surprisingly free of stereotypes or forced exaggerated accents. This is extremely unusual for a '30s Hollywood movie, considering the decade's track record of godawful racist scenes with Asian characters. I love '30s movies, but the decade at its worst is rough stuff.

What can I say? Mad Love is a lot of fun, with excellent production design, lighting, shot composition, performances, and, as the hippies of yesteryear and the kids of today like to say, vibes. Vibe shift your way back to 1935 for Mad Love. It's worth your time.