the hands of orlac (1960)

aka Hands of a Strangler. Hands of the Strangler.
Stephen Orlac (Mel Ferrer) is a famous pianist, when tragedy strikes. Flying to his marriage to Louise Cochrane (Lucile Saint-Simon), the plane crashes. Orlac is lucky to be alive, but his hands have been ruined. His only hope is pioneering surgery and a hand transplant. Recovering from the surgery Orlac feels his hands are no longer his own, and has disturbing dreams. Could the donor hands be the hands of a recently executed murderer Louis Vasseur? Orlac runs away but Nero (Christopher Lee), a magician with a nice sideline in blackmail, spots him and decides Orlac could be a good source of revenue. Nero and his assistant, Li-Lang (Régina), set about wringing Orlac dry, but don't recon on his now wife Louise turning detective.
A rather lightweight version of a story that has been adapted numerous times, with a weak performance by Ferrer, which is shown up all the more by the devilishly evil Lee. The film tries to show the torment of a man undergoing a nervous breakdown, rather than a standard horror, but with Orlac doing little more than fretting, it lacks a sense of danger or urgency. On the up side there are two fine French Ye-Ye style pop performances to liven things up a bit.