Orlac's hands
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Orlac's hands |
| Country of production | Austria |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1924 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Robert Wiene |
| script | Louis Mink |
| production | Pan movie |
| music | Pierre Oser |
| camera | Günther Krampf , Hans Androschin |
| occupation | |
| |
Orlac's hands is an Austrian science fiction and horror film by Robert Wiene from 1924. It is assigned to late expressionism in German-language film.
action
The celebrated concert pianist Paul Orlac is on his way home from a tour, eagerly awaited by his wife Yvonne. But there is an accident with two colliding trains, and Yvonne, who had rushed to the train station and then to the scene of the accident with a driver, can only rescue the husband from the wreckage, seriously injured. In the sanatorium of a Dr. Serral can save the musician's life, but not the hands that were damaged in the crash. Because Yvonne begs the surgeon about these extremely important body parts, the surgeon takes advantage of the coincidental circumstance that the body of the executed murderer Vasseur was handed over to him for scientific purposes on the same day that Orlac was brought in: Yvonne and the formerly unconscious artist sews without knowledge Serral the hands of the executed man to this. When he is again in possession of his mental powers, Orlac is surprised at the strange hands, but only a note secretly left on his bed gives him certainty about what has happened; in addition, a strange stranger appears briefly at the window of his sick-room door. Orlac is completely destroyed, because never again would he be able to regain his old piano art with these criminal hands or get close to a woman.
Although Serral has repeatedly encouraged him, Orlac is tormented by panic attacks and fears at home. His wife suffers, and artistic inactivity leads to financial hardship. Therefore, Yvonne asks the husband to ask his rich father for help. But Paul strictly rejects this request because both men have been enemies for a long time; Yvonne's own attempt also fails. So Orlac finally goes to beg the senior, but finds him dead, stabbed to death with the knife from Vasseur, which Orlac had found by chance in his house on his return from the clinic and later hidden in his piano. Traumatized, he goes to a bar, and there a strange encounter occurs: the stranger, whom he briefly spotted in the clinic, extorted a million sum from the murdered man's inheritance. Orlac's horrified denial is of no use, because the police have already found Vasseur's fingerprints on the crime knife, and the unknown scoundrel knows that Orlac's hands were transplanted. To top the horror, the stranger pretends to be a vasseur - Dr. Serral sewed his head back on.
In desperation, the pianist confides in his wife who has become a stranger to him. This demands that he report the absurd incident to the investigators immediately. Orlac only reluctantly agrees, knowing full well that only he himself is eligible for the terrible crime. And in fact one does not believe the bar encounter, but when the arrest warrant has already been signed, another officer comes and asks Orlac to deliver the requested ransom to the bar - the police will take care of everything else. Of course, the blackmailer (Kortner) happily accepts the sum, but is overwhelmed in the next moment. The investigators recognize him as the con artist Nera, who was friends with Vasseur and who thought up the hellish plan in every detail. And that's exactly why there is still the problem that only Orlac could actually have killed his father. At this moment, of course, Yvonne and her maid Regine come into the bar; she had been shown in earlier scenes as - albeit reluctant - accomplice of Nera and is now settling accounts with the monster. The fraudster's hands and head had not been severed, and Vasseur's fingerprints had been transferred to a pair of rubber gloves using wax. And this even before the murder for which Vasseur was executed, which is why the latter even died innocent. Orlac is not only exonerated with this statement, but he can - since his new hands have not committed any crime - go back to his art.
background
Orlac's hands was based on the book by Maurice Renard . It is one of the first films to deal with fears of transplants . Was the location Filmatelier the Listo Film Vienna.
The premiere took place in Vienna at the beginning of September 1924. The German premiere followed on September 24, 1924 in the Berlin Haydn Cinema. The German Berolina-Film took over the film distribution. The French version ran under the title Les Mains d'Orlac , the English version as The Hands of Orlac . In 1928 it was premiered in the United States, where Aywon Film Corporation took over distribution.
The film architects and production designers Hans Rouc , Karl Exner and Stefan Wessely were responsible for the sets .
Reviews
“Late expressionist silent film that combines realistic crime film motifs with elements of the then still young science of psychology and thus expresses the consciousness of the uncertain 20s. An impressive play with light and shadow, the newly added avant-garde sound patterns take some getting used to. "
“The subject has an extremely gripping exposition and keeps the tension right up to the last scene, brought to bear by an excellently coordinated ensemble, led by Konrad Veidt. The direction is tight and careful, especially in the very realistic scenes of the railway disaster, the presentation tasteful, the events of the plot effectively underlining. Photography is up to date in every respect. A domestic film that is not inferior to the best foreign products. "
“A seldom exciting, fantastic film, based on the novel by Maurice Renard, staged with extraordinary skill, in a mixture of impression and realism, carried by the unheard-of creative power of Conrad Veidt. [Description of the plot] As I said, an excellent staged picture, especially played by Veidt in an unheard-of manner, next to which Fritz Kortner and Sorina are standing. - At the premiere [in Berlin], Pfeifer argued with the majority of the enthusiastic, who gave endless applause at the end of the act and at the open scene. The film runs in front of a house that is sold out every day, excellently illustrated by Schmidt-Gentner, and in the Mozart Hall - one might almost say - satirized by an amusing little Linder film 'To Help!', Which, however, should have been played afterwards rather than before. so that the gloomy, the terrible, the ghostly and the gruesome that this film naturally has to produce would have been somewhat softened. - Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that 'Orlac's hands' already thematically means an enrichment of our cinematic schedule, which has become uniform. Even in the provincial cinemas, the realism of conventional production is likely to be interrupted by a work of fantastic force. "
Versions
The original version was 2,507 meters long or 92 minutes (at 24 fps). After the war, a very much shortened version with titles translated back into German was distributed, which was only about 70 minutes long. The reconstructed version from 1995 is 2,357 meters long, which corresponds to 86 minutes. On January 11, 2001, a version reconstructed with the Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau Foundation was broadcast by Arte . This version was provided with new film music by Henning Lohner as well as background noises and the setting of an interrogation scene by means of an off-monologue, which was not unanimously approved. The film has since been shown at numerous film festivals around the world. The Filmarchiv Austria also made a reconstruction with its own copies, which is slightly more complete, but has photographic defects. It runs for 104 minutes (at 20 fps). The German premiere of the new version was on August 12, 2013 at the 29th International Silent Film Festival in Bonn. Richard Siedhoff accompanied the film on the piano with his own new composition, which was very well received. This version is now available on DVD with music by Donald Sosin. There is also a DVD release of the 1995 restored version with new English subtitles from KINO-International, which has a film running time of 110 minutes (at 20 fps).
Censorship decisions
The film was approved for Germany on September 25, 1924, but with the restriction of a youth ban. An application from the Saxon Ministry of the Interior dated January 10, 1925, where the film was requested to be censored because it was “likely to endanger public safety and order. [...] Based on an expert opinion by the Dresden State Criminal Police Office, the Saxon government does not consider it reasonable to make the internal facilities and aids of the criminal police, in particular the fingerprint system, known to the general public, because this would make it more difficult to fight crime. It is also inappropriate to present means that enable the criminal to cover his tracks and to deceive the police. "
The application for censorship was rejected by the supervisory authority, as an expert from the Berlin Police Presidium who had been questioned by it described the facts as unrealistic. Such or similar experiences that fingerprints could be forged by means of wax prints have not yet become known in Europe, let alone other methods of forging fingerprints. The review board admitted that if the film were to portray a realistic method of forging fingerprints, if one existed, it would pose a threat to public safety, but concluded that it was only the method shown in the film could be a "pipe dream".
In 1996, the film was subjected to another review and approved, and no age limit was given.
Remakes
There were two remakes:
- Mad Love (USA 1935) with Peter Lorre , directed by Karl Freund
- The sinister hands of Dr. Orlak (GB / FRA 1960) with Mel Ferrer and Christopher Lee , directed by Edmond T. Gréville
literature
- Roland M. Hahn and Rolf Giesen: The new lexicon of horror films . Lexicon Interprint Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89602-507-4
- Matthias Bickenbach, Annina Klappert, Hedwig Pompe: Manus Loquens. Medium of gesture - gesture of the media. Dumont Literature and Art Verlag, Cologne 2003, pp. 243–305: Monstrous Modernism. On the function point of the manus loquens in Robert Wienes' HÄNDE (Austria 1924) ISBN 3832178309
- Ines Steiner, Claudia Liebrand: The one who dances with the dagger. Expressive movement and gestural semantics in Robert Wiene's Orlac's hands (1924). In: Medien & Zeit 1/2003, pp. 4–22.
- Thomas Ballhausen : trauma, hysteria, archive. An experiment on "Orlac's hands" . In: Quarber Mercury . Franz Rottensteiner's literary magazine for science fiction and fantasy , vol. 115, pp. 68–84, 2014. ISBN 978-3-934273-94-8
- Claudia Pinkas: The fantastic film: unstable narrations and the narration of instability. Dissertation University of Karlsruhe 2009; De Gruyter, Berlin New York 2010, ISBN 978-3-11-023756-6 , pp. 185-192
Web links
- The Hands of Orlac in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Orlac's hands at filmportal.de
- Orlac's hands at stummfilm.at
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thomas Ballhausen, Günter Krenn: (Alb) Dreamlike: The city without Jews. In: Medienimpulse, issue No. 57, September 2006, p. 35 (advertisement) and 37 (film review in Paimann's film lists No. 441 of September 19, 1924), digitized (PDF; 443 kB), accessed on July 15, 2010
- ↑ Orlac's hands. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed June 3, 2017 .
- ↑ Quoted by Orlac's hands ( Memento from May 5, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) on January 5, 2007
- ↑ Orlacs hands , European Film Philharmonic , 2000
- ↑ International Silent Film Festival August 8-18 , 2013 , International Silent Film Festival , PDF, p. 17
- ↑ Hans Helmut Prinzler : Orlac's hands (1924) , hhprinzler.de, March 9, 2014
- ^ Olaf Brill: DVD Review: The Hands of Orlac (1924) , filmhistoriker.de, April 22, 2008