The 1935 MGM Karl Freund film adaptation of Maurice Renard's novel, "Les Mains D'Orlac"....featuring Colin Clive, Ted Healy, Frances Drake and Peter Lorre; produced by John Considine Jr. ...adapted by Guy Endore...with costumes by Dolly Tree, Musical Score by Dimitri Tiomkin, and Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons....clicked all my buttons this morning at 3:45, when it was shown on TCM.....We get Keye Luke in his 'Mister/Dr. Wong' persona and seemingly ever-present Ian Wolfe in yet another of his dark roles.....remember "Bedlam", or his many character actor performances? ......The Film opens with a fist breaking a frosty glass window on a snowy, frigid evening, to reveal a man, hung by his neck in a painted set room of Le Theatre Des Horreurs.....the viewer is diverted to 'the real world' as a courting couple exits what was a Wax Museum-ish exhibit of Terror and Torture......the young woman, squabbling with her boyfriend over not having gone 'someplace' to 'have some fun'.......They pass by a Theater Sign advertising "Yvonne"....at Le Theatre....then the camera, abandoning the couple that disappear with other fashionable couples...all wearing the then obligatory hats and couture essentials, as we are now engaged by Yvonne, primping her 'look' for a performance, as "Torturee", reading her fan mail and wondering if Dr. Gogol is rich enough for her attention..........All of these observations are from the first couple of minutes of the Film, incidentally....
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