Summary
After a successful concert, the pianist Stephen Orlac is involved in a
plane crash whilst returning to his fiancée Louise. On the
way to the hospital, the ambulance must take a detour because no one
can pass near the prison where the strangler Vasseur is due to be
guillotined that same night. Six months after an operation on his
hands, Orlac is in despair because he can no longer play the
piano. Louise suggests that he should spend time with her at her
house on the Riviera. But, here, Orlac has a nervous
breakdown. Fleeing to Marseilles, he rents a room in a small
hotel where he meets Regina, a minor music hall artist, and her
partner, Neron. These two are in fact crooks who know Orlac by
reputation and are ready to blackmail him. One day, Orlac
telephones Louise to tell her that he has no control over his hands,
which he knows to be the ones taken from the corpse of the strangler
Vasseur. Neron overhears the conversation and conceives a
diabolical plan...
Review
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Useful links
- Best French films of 2011
- Best French films of the 2000s
- Best of the French New Wave
- Best of French film comedy
- The best 100 French films
- The most successful French films
- Great French filmmakers
Related links
- The best French crime-thrillers
- Other French films of the 1960s
- The best French films of the 1960s
- Other French crime-thrillers
- Biography and films of Edmond T. Gréville
To buy this film
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Credits
- Director: Edmond T. Gréville
- Script: John Baines, Edmond T. Gréville, Maurice Renard (novel)
- Photo: Desmond Dickinson, Jacques Lemare
- Music: Claude Bolling
- Cast: Mel Ferrer (Stephen Orlac), Christopher Lee (Nero the magician), Dany Carrel (Régina), Lucile Saint-Simon (Louise Cochrane Orlac), Felix Aylmer (Dr. Francis Cochrane), Peter Reynolds (Mr. Felix), Basil Sydney (Maurice Seidelman), Campbell Singer (Inspector Henderson), Donald Wolfit (Professor Volchett), Donald Pleasence (Graham Coates), Peter Bennett (1st Member), George Merritt (2nd Member), Arnold Diamond (Dresser), Janina Faye (Child), Gertan Klauber (Fairground attendant), Mireille Perrey (Madame Aliberti)
- Country: France / UK
- Language: English / French
- Runtime: 104 min; B&W
- Aka: Hands of a Strangler; Hands of the Strangler; Les Mains d’Orlac
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To buy The Hands of Orlac:

Horror / Crime / Thriller






