[1][2] Concert pianist Paul Orlac loses his hands in a horrible railway accident.
Orlac's new hands are unable to play the piano, and in time he and his wife run out of money.
The man tells Orlac that the assistant of the surgeon who did the hand transplant reattached his – Vasseur's – head to his body.
[3] The Hands of Orlac was based on Maurice Renard's novel Les Mains d'Orlac which had been translated into German by Norbert Jacques in 1922.
[4] A review in Film-Kurier specifically spoke about Wiene's direction, stating that "that one has found the right director for the rendering of the mysterious psychology and the suspense-ladne story of this film.
"[4] A review in Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung stated that Wiene was on par with other directors of the era such as Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau and Karl Grune and that he had the actors work well together that was last best seen in Husbands or Lovers (1924).
[4] Variety wrote "[W]ere it not for Veidt's masterly characterization, The Hands of Orlac would be an absurd fantasy in the old-time mystery-thriller class";[6] and The New York Times opined "Although it is raw, hardly the sort of thing some people want to look at after the evening demi-tasse or just before retiring.
An application was made by the Ministry of the Interior of Saxony dated 10 January 1925, urging that the film should be censored, because it "is likely to endanger public safety and order […] Based on an assessment by the Provincial Criminal Office at Dresden the Government of Saxony does not think it appropriate to make publicly known the internal arrangements and tools of the criminal police, particularly in connection with the taking of finger prints, as this would make the fighting of crime more difficult.
Further, the representation of means which enable the criminal to obliterate his prints and deceive the police, is highly unsuitable."
The application for censorship was refused by the Higher Inspectorate, as an expert from the police headquarters in Berlin, when questioned by them about it, described the specialist content as unrealistic.