Folks can't keep their hands off The Hands of Orlac, Maurice Renard's disarming novel about a pianist whose fingers have a mind of their own. From the silent Mad Love (1924) to The Hands of Orlac (1960), the Hands of a Stranger (1962), and the most recent rip-off sans piano, Body Parts (1991), the various renditions have been more about bad behavior than good music. But Karl Freund's maniacal Mad Love (1935) is still the hands-down winner-a horror film without monsters, playing instead on a very real terror, the fear of being manipulated against one's will. Peter Lorre in his first American film is remarkable as the demented Dr. Gogol, a sadistic surgeon who, out of mad love for a stage actress (Frances Drake), grafts new hands onto her concert-pianist husband (Colin Clive); the hands, from a recently guillotined murderer, still long to reach out and choke someone. Ominously photographed by Gregg Toland, Mad Love handily shows that arpeggios can kill.-Steve Seid