WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Mad Love (1935) 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:10.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.880 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is Rob Lamb. 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.960 And I am Joe McCormick, and today we're doing Mad Love. 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:23.040 That's right. This is a film that I've been excited 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:27.240 to do on Weird House Cinema even before we really 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.920 formalize what this would be. Now, before we get into 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.040 the movie, you might be asking, well, what do this be? 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.360 What is Weird House Cinema? What you know? You may 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:38.760 think of Stuff to Blow your Mind, and of course 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:41.200 you think of a science and culture show. Well, Stuff 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.839 to Blow Your Mind remains a science and culture podcast 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.680 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Friday night is our time to 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.120 focus on weird films. We may also discuss science and 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.120 culture on this show, but we put the weird horse 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.960 ahead of the cart on these days. Think of this 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.800 show as the haunted hands of a movie podcast grafted 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:00.800 onto the body of a science podcast. 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:03.560 I like it. So this is a movie that's come 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:06.399 up on Stuff to Blow your Mind proper before I 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.160 think maybe did it come up in talking about I 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.560 don't know, cutting off parts of the body and retaining 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.120 memories or I think it's come up a few times 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:16.800 because I had never seen the movie before, but I 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:21.160 had seen the trailer for Mad Love, and the trailer 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.800 is just wonderful because it begins with Peter Lourie sitting 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.520 on a couch next to a dog that's bigger than 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:31.240 he is and getting a phone call from a beautiful 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:33.399 actress who wants to tell him how great he is 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:35.640 in the movie that they start in together. 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.840 Yeah. Yeah, it's one of those wonderfully weird trailers. It's 0:01:38.840 --> 0:01:41.640 just so different from anything you see today because it 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:45.880 begins with this real, supposedly real life conversation where she's like, oh, 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.040 Peter Laurie, I loved you, and em tell me about 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.160 this new film you have coming up, and then you 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:52.760 go to a more proper trailer. 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.600 That's right, And for such a mundane beginning of a trailer, 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:00.320 this is a fabulously strange movie, especially for what you're 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:02.800 Did it come out in nineteen thirty four? Is that right? 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:03.520 Thirty five? 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.960 I believe, Okay, thirty four to thirty five. Yeah, I 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:11.280 think you're right thirty five, And Wow, what a strange 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:15.079 film it's got. It's one of the strangest things I 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:17.160 think we should just sell right up front, is there 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:19.960 is a costume that Peter Lourie puts on in the 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:23.520 later half of the movie that like, is just hard 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:25.760 to believe it comes from the era that it does. 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.680 It seems very cybernetic. 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:33.959 Yeah, it is is frightening to behold. But yeah, outside 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.600 of that, they're just a number of crazy weird elements 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:42.160 in this film, and it has at least two eccentric performances, 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:45.480 the first and foremost that of Peter Lorii, which we'll 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:47.440 get into in a minute. But you know what, I'll 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:50.440 go ahead and do the elevator pitch for this this movie, 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:52.880 so you know generally what we're talking about here before 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.640 we get into discussing the players. A gifted but deranged 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:03.000 surgeon named doctor Gogel becomes obsessed with horror actress Yvonne Orlock, 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:07.320 and when Yvonne's husband, the famous pianist Stephen Orlock, suffers 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:11.680 a brutal accident, Google transplants the hands of an executed 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:17.320 killer onto Orlock, and from here everything just spirals into 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:22.440 this kind of weird tale of psychological manipulation and delusion. 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:24.800 Let's hear just a snip of that trailer. 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.120 I boupest have conquered serns. 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:31.679 Why can't I conquer love? 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:38.560 He shall be shut up when it's a weere mad, 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:44.960 but nobody knows that, yes, each man kills the thing 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:50.600 he loves. 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:53.680 So one of the things that maybe we should start 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:55.960 with is the title of this movie, because it doesn't 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.800 really communicate what this film is really all about, which 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:03.040 is like severed hands and crazy psychological manipulation. 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.320 Yeah, Mad Love is I think, kind of an imperfect title. 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.720 I far prefer the alternative title it sometimes it plays under, 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.560 and that is The Hands of Orlock, though that one 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.240 also feels somewhat, I don't know, insignificant, given the focus 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:21.080 of the film is not on Orlock as much as 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:26.120 it is on doctor Gogel Peter Lourie's character. I also think, 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:31.400 I mean for modern viewers, there's also this we also 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:33.120 have to take into to mind that you have this 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:36.800 nineteen ninety five film that's also called Mad Love that 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.080 many of us might have remembered. If you didn't see 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.359 it then then maybe even you just saw the trailers 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.920 and it starred Chris O'Donnell and Drew Barrymore, and none 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:47.080 of the plot elements were discussing here. It's a completely 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:50.960 unrelated film. I'm sure it's quite nice. It was directed 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.240 by Antonio Byrd, who of course directed Ravenous in nineteen 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:57.560 ninety nine and Priest in nineteen ninety four. But yeah, 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.000 nothing to do with Peter Lourie, The Hands of Warlock 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:01.599 or anything. 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:04.560 I believe. It was based on a short story called 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.080 the Hands of Orlock, right like Leman do Orlock? 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.880 Yeah? Yeah, This was by French fantasy and horror writer 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:15.040 Maurice Renard who lived eighteen seventy five through nineteen thirty nine. 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.400 And I'm not I wasn't really familiar with the works 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:23.000 of Reynard, but he wrote multiple tales of mad scientists, 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:28.919 alien beings, futuristic technology. And this is just one of 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.600 four screen adaptations of the Hands of Orlock. And it 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:36.400 wasn't the first. The first was was the nineteen twenty 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:41.440 four Silent Austrian film starring Conrad Veitt, who many of 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:44.640 you may know from the Cabinet of Doctor Kligari or 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:48.159 The Man Who Laughs, which even if you haven't seen it, 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:50.200 you may have seen a still from it, because it's 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:53.359 often discussed as being an inspiration for The Joker and 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:55.440 the Batman franchise. 0:05:55.839 --> 0:06:01.680 Yeah, really otherworldly disturbing face in Cabinet of Doctor Kligari 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.760 does he plays Sesar, the somnambulist. 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:09.039 I believe. So I have a hard time remembering the 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:11.680 characters in Caligari as much as just the you know, 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:14.760 the breathaking visuals. That's that's certainly when it comes to 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:17.320 silent films worth watching today. That's that's one of the 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.120 good ones. Anyway, Conrad played Orlock in that, but there 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.640 was no Gogel. Instead, there was a less essential character, 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.960 a surgeon named doctor Sarah. So it seems that by 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.040 the time they end up making Mad Love like they've 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.800 they've adapted it enough. They've made more of a character 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:38.200 out of the surgeon. The surgeon has become the center 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.919 of the piece, as opposed to just this contemplation of 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:46.679 futuristic hand transplantation and how you know, how that affects 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:50.919 our idea of body and personality integrity. Now, there were 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:52.920 a couple of other adaptations of the Hands of Warlock. 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:57.320 One was a nineteen sixty French British adaptation that actually 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:01.040 had Christopher Lee in it playing Nero the Magician, of 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:02.760 which I think was just an. I don't know why 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.080 you would, why you would mess around with the plot 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:07.880 that much, but there you go. And then in nineteen 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.200 sixty two there was an American adaptation titled Hands of 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:15.080 a Stranger. It started nobody in particular. I think the 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:18.880 main noteworthy thing about it is that director k newt 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:23.320 Arnold also directed Blood Sport and was assistant director on 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:25.200 a lot of major films such as Blade Runner and 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:26.400 The Godfather Part two. 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:28.880 Oh that's interesting, yeah, But. 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:32.040 The basic plot element here of what you could think 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:36.000 of is transplant panic and the idea of a transplanted 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:40.160 limb altering an individual's personality. You see that showing up 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.560 in a great many films and TV episodes. Just to 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.520 name a few, there was The Hand of Fear, an 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:50.240 episode of the Tom Baker era Doctor Who series. There 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:57.720 was nineteen ninety one's Body Parts starring Jeff fay Linsey Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.480 Lindsey Duncan and Brad Doriff. And then you'll find various 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:05.720 horror anthology episodes. I think that they either have this 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:08.520 particular plot of oh now I have the hands of 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:10.280 a killer or in the hands of a stranger on 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.760 my body, as well as a related but different form 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:19.160 of dismemberment. Panic films about disembodied crawling hands. I'd love 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:21.520 to come back to crawling hand films in the future. 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:25.440 Oh maybe a future October episode. Now, this reminds me 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:27.840 of something we talked about not too long ago on 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.000 Stuff to Blow your mind when we did the episode 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:32.240 I Want a New Blood. That was all about blood 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:37.680 transfusions and how there were experiments in the seventeenth century, 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.520 as far back as the seventeenth century in France to 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:45.240 transfuse the blood of animals into humans for various reasons, 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.720 some of which were not necessarily all that grounded in 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:52.599 good science. But for example, you might perform a phlebotomy 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.040 because of the gallinic humoral theory of the day, you'd 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.120 bleed a patient to reduce a fever or to reduce 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.280 mania or something thing. And then there were some surgeons 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:03.800 at the time who said, you know what we should 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.720 do is take out the bad blood and then replace 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:10.080 it with the blood of an animal that has the 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.640 sort of personality characteristics that we want to put into 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:17.400 the person. So if somebody is overly excited, they're suffering 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.760 from a mania, you would put lamb's blood into their 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:24.360 body because the gentleness and coolness of the lamb would 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.559 come through in the blood. And this also but this 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:31.880 was also countered by people who opposed blood transfusions on 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:35.120 the idea that you could create some kind of hybrid 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.360 creature that like, negative qualities of the original animal would 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.040 come through in the new person and they wouldn't really 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:44.760 be fully human anymore. So there's long been this idea 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:49.079 that transfusing blood from one creature to another, or transplanting 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:51.240 a body part from one creature to another or one 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.880 person to another, brings with it some kind of personality characteristic. 0:09:56.360 --> 0:10:01.680 Yeah. Yeah, this concern over the entire of the body, uh, 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:06.320 when we get into the transplantation of tissues and fluids 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:09.280 and organs and limbs. And I think one of course 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:11.680 thing to note is that while a lot of the 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.640 concerns over the over blood have sort of passed away 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:19.160 with the with with the widespread use of blood transfusions. 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.839 You know, you will find some religious objections to blood 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:25.560 transfusions here and there, but for the most part, it 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.560 has become a part of our our everyday life. You know, 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.839 like you even if you're not giving blood every day, 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:33.800 you may hear about blood drives, et cetera. It's just 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:38.120 part of the medical reality of the modern world. Hand transplants, 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:42.880 as we'll discuss a little later, are far far rarer. Uh. 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:46.360 They are a far more complicated procedure and one that 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.880 is not not every day and uh, and also one 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:51.920 that is you know, it seems like our ability to 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:56.480 pull it off is still evolving. So you definitely see 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:01.280 that that that same kind of energy in these transplantation 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:06.480 panic films and other bits of fiction that this sort 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:08.680 of deal with this idea, what if the hands of 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:12.120 another became my hands, would they really be my hands? 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:15.120 And that, of course is one of the key things 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:16.040 going on in this film. 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.360 I like the idea, though, of these science fiction films 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:24.439 that take a very scientifically or at least ostensibly scientifically 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:29.240 grounded premise. This is about medical science performing experiments at 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:32.040 the edge of what was known to medicine at the day, 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:37.640 but it still basically believes in magic. That still basically 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:42.199 believes that like hands contain some magical essence of the 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.400 brain of the person they came from. And it seems 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:49.080 to me, you know, modern science fiction doesn't usually operate 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.880 on quite that level of belief in the supernatural. 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.439 Yeah, there is. There's certainly a dash of the supernatural 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:57.720 in this one. There is a lot of science fiction, 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:00.640 you know, it is essentially like science fiction is always 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:06.480 about our hopes and our anxieties concerning where technology is 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:08.960 taking us. And you know, at the time it was 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.360 looking towards the future in which we would be able 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:17.160 to carry out hand transplants or certainly double hand transplants. 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:20.840 We eventually got to that point, but at the time 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:24.480 it was just pure speculation. It was just we may 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:26.520 get to this point, and then when we get there, 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:29.880 what will it mean? What if it goes wrong? And 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.719 then the way it goes wrong is, uh, you know, 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:35.240 it goes a bit more in the speculative and magical 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.839 direction by going beyond like what if it doesn't work, 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.240 but also getting into that area of what if it 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:42.200 isn't me anymore. 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.520 Now, if you have seen any image from this film, 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:48.880 and I think there's a decent chance you have, it 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:53.640 is probably the image of Peter Lori in his Rollo costume. 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.040 And we'll explain how that fits into the plot a 0:12:56.040 --> 0:13:00.000 little bit more in more detail later, but in this costume, 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:05.040 it's Peter loriie wearing this bizarre metal and leather neck 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:07.680 brace that goes over his shoulders and goes up to 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:11.199 his chin and is laced up with like a shoe, 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.920 and then with metal hands and dark sunglasses are almost 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.480 kind of welding goggles, and a big black hat. 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:26.040 Yes, it is a really nightmarish image to behold. I 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.880 feel like it was definitely an influence on the Gestapo 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:35.000 agent taught in Raiders of Lost Arc played by Ron Lacy. 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:39.480 And Ron Lacey gives a very laure Esque performance in that, 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.280 especially when you take into a when you're take into 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:44.640 account the code and the hat as well, and also 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:48.160 early character concepts for that character, and Raiders apparently gave 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:51.160 him a cybernetic metal arm. I feel like there's a 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.680 there's some strong comparisons to be made there, and I 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:58.000 think I have read that Spielberg went with Lacey because 0:13:58.040 --> 0:13:59.480 he reminded him of Peter Lourie. 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.480 Oh that's interesting. Well, this is getting us into the 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:05.560 people who were involved in this movie, So maybe we 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:09.040 should start with looking at the director, Carl Freund, who 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.600 was a cinematographer before he was a director proper. And 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:15.960 I recognized the same immediately when it came up in 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:18.880 the opening credits, and I realized where I recognized it 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:20.880 from was from the movies of Fritz Long. 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:25.160 That's right. He was a cinematographer on Metropolis as well 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:27.680 as the nineteen not of Fritz Long film, but the 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.760 nineteen thirty one Dracula film. Oh, there was another film 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:32.960 that he was a cinematographer on. He was a cinematographer 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.200 on I think one hundred and sixty three films according 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:38.080 to IMDb, and was active through the nineteen sixties. 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.400 He worked on some other universal horror films I think, 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:43.720 didn't he was he involved with The Mummy? 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.160 Yeah, he directed nineteen thirty two's The Mummy, starring Boris 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:51.520 Karloff as Zemmotep Oh. Okay, but the main attraction here, 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:59.040 really the centerpiece, is Peter Laurie as Doctor Gogel. This 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.440 Laurie is the ultimate highlight in this film, as the 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:04.760 picture I think gives him a chance to shine just 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.760 in multiple ways because his go go It's interesting. He's 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:13.560 he's sometimes quite dapper and sly, you know, walking around smoking, 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.480 you know, gazing kind of slyly at everything around him. 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:23.080 Other times he's this tragic, earnest, even manic character and 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.480 then there's this scene which again we'll get into more 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:27.600 of the details on in a bit, where he takes 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:31.520 on the guise of this reassembled Rollo character, and he 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:36.040 gives a really otherworldly performance in this this kind of 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:39.880 science fiction within a science fiction, and then ultimately the 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:42.920 whole plot just Criscindo's into madness and he plays an 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.440 increasingly mad character. So Laurie, I feel like, really gets 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:50.320 to just trot out all the tools in this particular movie. 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.040 I think that when Mad Love was first released, it 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:57.480 was sort of mostly or at least partially critically panned. 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.800 I think people look at it, yeah, yeah, okay, this 0:15:59.880 --> 0:16:04.480 is childish trash. But even in those reviews, there was 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.360 a lot of praise for Lori because Peter Laurie is obviously, 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:09.280 you know, one of the great actors, one of the 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:10.600 great film actors of all time. 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.680 Yeah. He was a Hungarian American actor of Jewish descent, 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:18.360 made a whole career basically out of playing weird characters, 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.280 just weirdos. You know. He had he had kind of 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:25.440 a you know, a kind of a weird asymmetrical look, 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.000 and he had this this wonderful accent and this kind 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.680 of you know, raspy voice. The voice I don't even 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:34.800 have to do an impression, because you're hearing it now. 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.240 You may already be speaking it out loud just to 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.359 hear yourself use it. I mean, it's it's a universally 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:45.040 known voice. You know, he was, he was a legend 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.040 of cinema. Now, this was his first American film, on 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:53.000 the heels of nineteen thirty one's much acclaimed im by 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.760 Fritz Lung, and then he played in that, he played 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:58.840 an accused child murderer. And he would go on to 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.800 have memorable roles and The Maltese Falcon and forty one, 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:05.439 of course, Casablanca and forty two, along with just a 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:09.480 long list of great, memorable and occasionally forgettable or embarrassing films. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.920 But he worked with such directors as John Houston, Alfred Hitchcock, 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:17.440 Frank Capra. You know, he'd pretty much did it all. 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:20.880 I mean, Laurie, I think is a great early example 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:24.600 of someone who would be well known in their own 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:29.800 right as a powerhouse film star without being a dashing lead, 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:33.040 without being like, you know, an attractive actor or actress 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.919 who would play the lead role in films, you know, 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.879 to be the hero Laurie was often a villain or 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.280 a strange character actor, and I don't know how common 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.600 it was at the time for actors like that to 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.600 be a household name that was you know, known and revered. 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:50.919 Yeah, Like you see footage of him, such as in 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.679 that trailer, you know, like how many weird actors and 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.840 character actors today? Can you even imagine such a setup? 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:03.119 You know, where you're coming at everyone first with the 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:07.080 celebrity and the natural charisma of the actor, and then 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:09.600 you hit the trailer. And I think it speaks to 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:11.720 you know, one of the things about him, It is 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.280 like he was charismatic. He was, you know, kind of 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:18.480 dashing in his own slightly anti Hollywood way, And like 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:22.119 I say, he also just became cemented in popular culture. 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:24.800 I was looking around for, you know, books about him, 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:28.439 and I ran across The Animated Peter Lourie by Matthew Hahn. 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.960 This is a book that points out apparently seven hundred 0:18:32.000 --> 0:18:38.040 instances of animated cartoons using Laurie's face or voice or both. 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.600 So this is everything from old timey cartoons where it's like, oh, 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:44.320 suddenly a bunch of dead celebrities have shown up, and 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:47.919 here's one of them, it's it's Peter Lourie. Two just 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:51.440 characters like on Scooby Doo or whatever that may not 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:54.800 be Peter Lourie but have his voice and or his appearance. 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:58.439 And you see that still today. Like the Peter Lourie 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:02.400 impersonation is kind of like a standard impersonation one might 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:05.640 turn to. You see it, for instance, in the Star 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:09.080 Wars Clone Wars animated series, there's a character that shows up, 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:12.879 a bounty hunter named Cad Baine, and it has kind 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:17.399 of like a mechanically augmented voice, but the root of 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:21.000 it is a Peter Lourie impersonation, and you can pinpoint it. 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:25.320 Oh that's interesting. I like how that connects Star Wars 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.240 to the classic old serials. 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:29.760 Yeah, I mean clearly, Like this is a guy that 0:19:29.800 --> 0:19:32.920 people like Spielberg and Lucas, you know, they grew up 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:36.359 watching these films like he was. He was one of 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:39.040 the maybe not the top tier deities, but one of 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:41.359 the supporting deities in the pantheon of film. 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:43.680 Now there's another actor in the movie who I think 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.760 is maybe weirder than people realized when they cast him. 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:49.879 I don't know. He's supposed to be the hero of 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.560 the film. But this is Colin Clive playing Stephen Orlock, 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:57.520 who appeared in the Frankenstein movies. He was Doctor Frankenstein 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:02.719 in James Wale's Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. And he 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:07.359 has such a such a rat like nervous energy in 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.080 this film. It's similar actually to what you see in 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:11.240 the Frankenstein movies. 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:15.400 Yeah, yeah, I mean in both films he plays an 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:21.880 accomplished and seemingly confident man who is then riddled by 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.000 madness and trauma. You know, has gone through a traumatic 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:30.520 experience and is continually haunted by what has occurred. And yeah, 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:32.480 he seems to just and I have to admit I've 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:37.040 only seen Colin Clive in this movie, Mad Love and 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.800 the two Frankenstein films of note, but in all three 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:45.080 of those, like he just has this wonderful raw energy 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:48.239 to him, and there is this sense of like tragedy too. 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:49.840 I don't know how much of the tragedy is just 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.240 knowing that, for instance, he would die in nineteen thirty seven, 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:55.840 just two years later at the age of thirty seven, 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:58.080 and that he had, you know, a number of demons 0:20:58.480 --> 0:20:58.880 in his life. 0:20:58.920 --> 0:20:59.320 I believe he. 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:06.440 He suffered from alcoholism. But you know, whatever, whatever traumas 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.280 he had in his life, you know, he seems able 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:13.520 to have translated that into these performances. And so, yeah, 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.400 he's perfect for this role. Is this, you know, handsome 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:19.919 and accomplished individual who is then put through this this 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:24.440 traumatic situation and then then pushed towards delusion by the 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:26.200 villainist doctor Gogel. 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:30.800 He has this energy as if he's undergoing fission. You 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:32.840 think that you're going to walk into a room and 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.320 catch him just chewing on a corner of the wall. 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:37.960 Yeah. 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:42.000 Now, there's another major actress in this film, Francis Drake, 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.800 who plays Stephen Orlac's wife, Yvonne Orlac, the heroine of 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:49.720 the film, who plays an actress within the movie. But 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:53.080 one thing before we get into details about Francis Drake 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:55.720 that I thought was interesting is I read that originally 0:21:55.840 --> 0:22:00.760 this role of Yvonne Orlac was cast with another actress, 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:06.480 an actress named Virginia Bruce. And just clicking around on 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:10.200 the internet, I discovered that Virginia Bruce played Jane Eyre 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:14.879 in a nineteen thirty four American adaptation of the Bronte novel, 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.720 and in this movie, Colin Clive, the guy with the 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:23.679 fision rat nervous energy plays mister Rochester. I just I 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:25.679 don't know. I would have to see that to believe it, 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:28.720 because mister Rochester is supposed to be this, you know, dark, 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:33.600 smooth byronic hunk. But Colin Clive's teeth are almost audibly 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.360 rattling when you watch him. It's hard to imagine him 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:37.520 really fitting with that role. 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:40.760 Huh. Yeah, Now I'm gonna have to watch that or 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:43.199 watch some clips from it, just to see, you know, 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:45.240 what kind of energy he has in that, because again 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:49.400 I've only seen this level of energy out of Colin Clive. Now, 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.879 Francis Drake is quite good in this. It's easy to 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:56.440 lose sight of her because she is kind of sandwiched 0:22:56.480 --> 0:23:02.160 between these very manic performance but she was a star 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:04.520