The man who laughs

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title The man who laughs
Original title The Man Who Laughs
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1928
length 110 minutes
Rod
Director Paul Leni
script J. Grubb Alexander
Walter Anthony
Mary McLean
Charles E. Whittaker
production Paul Kohner
music Walter Hirsch
Lew Pollack
Erno Rapee
camera Gilbert Warrenton
cut Edward L. Cahn
Maurice Pivar
occupation

The man who laughs (OT: The Man Who Laughs ) is an American film by the German director and filmmaker Paul Leni from 1928. The film is an adaptation of Victor Hugo's historical novel The Laughing Man (original title: L'Homme qui rit ). Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine and Mary Philbin as the blind Dea play the leading roles . The film is assigned to the genre of melodrama , but borrows from horror films due to its expressionistic gloom .

action

Gwynplaine lives in England in 1690 as the son of a nobleman. Gwynplaine's father insults King James II and is sentenced to death in the Iron Maiden by him. Gwynplaine itself is punished by Dr. Hardquannone, a master surgeon, cruelly disfigured: an artificially created, permanent, crazy grin condemns him from now on to laugh forever at his foolish father.

The homeless Gwynplaine wanders around and finds an abandoned baby, the blind Dea, during a snow storm. The two children are taken in by the quack Ursus. The years go by and Dea and Gwynplaine fall in love. But Gwynplaine does not want to marry Dea because he considers himself unworthy because of his disfigured face. The three of them earn their living through shows, in which the voyeuristic audience is mainly offered the sight of Gwynplaine's bizarre face. The trips bring the trio back to the territory of the late King James' successor, Queen Anne. Here Anne's court jester discovers records that attest to Gwynplaine's noble origins and his claim to his father's political power.

Gwynplaine's late father's fortune is administered by the Duchess Josiana. The Queen decrees that Gwynplaine and Josiana must marry in order for Gwynplaine to inherit. Josiana is both sexually attracted and repulsed by Gwynplaine's appearance. Gwynplaine refuses to obey the Queen's orders and flees. He finds Ursus and Dea at the harbor and enters a ship with them.

The film leaves out the end of the book, in which Dea dies while fleeing to the ship and Gwynplaine drowns himself.

background

After Universal Pictures had great success with films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925), the company encouraged producer Carl Laemmle to produce a film in a similar setting. Laemmle decided to make a film of Victor Hugo's L'Homme qui rit .

Because of his German origins, Laemmle had connections to the German film scene, which helped him negotiate with German filmmakers and actors. In this way he was able to win Paul Leni, whose film Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (1926) Laemmle was impressed. He also won Conrad Veidt for the lead role, who had already played a role in the films Das Wachsfigurenkabinett and Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari had gained notoriety.

Universal invested over $ 1 million in The Man Who Laughs , which was a sizable sum at the time. Charles D. Hall , Thomas F. O'Neill and Joseph C. Wright were responsible for the film construction. Vera West and David Cox designed the costumes .

The scenes with Olga Baclanova as Josiana were very daring for the time; there was also a nude scene in the bathroom, which was cut from the US version.

reception

The Österreichische Film-Zeitung wrote: “Staged by Paul Leni, who created incredibly impressive, life-filled, historical pictures and achieved an extremely strong overall effect, from the acting point of view it is above all Conrad Veidt whose downright sensational play makes the film an imposing artistic one There is a stamp. "

However, many contemporary reactions were rather restrained. The morbid atmosphere and the allegedly inauthentic scenery were criticized. Today's reception values The Man Who Laughs as an important work of German silent film expressionism.

Although the actor Kirk Douglas was interested in a remake for a long time, the subject was only remade once again during the time of the talkie, as The Man with the Golden Blade (L'uomo che ride) from 1966 by Sergio Corbucci . But Corbucci shifted the plot from England to Italy in the 16th century. A modern version was only released in 2012, directed by Jean-Pierre Améris, with Gérard Depardieu , Marc-André Grondin and Christa Théret in the leading roles.

The film influenced numerous other works. The figure of Gwynplaine is the inspiration for Batman's archenemy Joker . The movie The Black Dahlia of Brian De Palma uses scenes from The Man Who Laughs and makes certain elements of the plot on.

literature

  • William K. Everson : Classics of Horror Movies. Munich 1979, pages 33-36.
  • Victor Hugo : The laughing man. Historical novel. (Original title: L'homme qui rit ). Classic of the historical novel. German by Carl Johann Perl . Bastei-Verlag Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1999, 839 pages, ISBN 3-404-14267-5 .
  • Victor Hugo: “The man who laughs” or the exploitation of the unfortunate by the lucky. (Original title: L'homme qui rit ). Translated into German, edited and introduced by Walter Keiler . (Abridged film edition.) M. Maschler, Berlin 1929, 192 pp.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "The man who laughs". In:  Österreichische Film-Zeitung , October 6, 1928, p. 24 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / fil

Web links