Silent movies - The Man Who Laughs

Today I have brought you another film made by German expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni (the last one was "Waxworks") - "The Man Who Laughs" from 1928 based on Victor Hugo's novel with the same title (L'homme qui rit).

Theatrical poster,
public domain via
Wikimedia Commons

The story starts gruesome, just to prepare you, but actually this is not really a horror movie even if this is a publicity still. You'll see why.

Does he remind you of someone?

Here's the plot with spoilers, sorry, it's quite complicated, the movie is almost two hours long.

England, 17th century.
Before Lord Clancharlie, an exiled nobleman, is executed by command of King James II., he and his court jester Barkilphedro inform him that his little son he had come back for has been disfigured by the Comprachico surgeon Hardquannon who carved a grin on his face. (Comprachicos, a term coined by Hugo, probably supposed to be Romani, were said (the emphasis is on "said", we still know today how such rumors get spread) to cripple and disfigure children to make them work as performers in freak shows, at fairs or even at courts, and yes, if you were reminded of The Joker from the DC comics, this movie was the inspiration for him.) His estate goes to Duchess Josiana.
When the King later bans the Comprachicos, they leave the boy Gwynplaine behind. Fighting his way through a snowstorm, he comes upon a dead mother holding her baby and rescues the girl. Ursus, a philosopher and showman, who lives with his pet wolf Homo, takes them both in and notices that the baby is blind. He calls her Dea.

Years later, they travel together and Gwynplaine, called "The Laughing Man" and Dea perform in plays written by Ursus. Gwynplaine is in love with Dea, but feels unworthy of her love. Most of the time he's hiding his mouth under a scarf, his coat or his hand, even around her.

 
Hardquanonne has come back to England and recognizes Gwynplaine at the fair. He sends a letter to Josiana to tell her he has seen the rightful heir of her estate and writes that he wants to be paid for his silence. Barkilphedro, who is now an agent at the court, gets the letter into his hands and forwards it to Queen Anne who doesn't like Josiana's respectless behavior towards her.

Meanwhile, Josiana has seen Gwynplaine at the fair and invites him to her place with the intention of seducing him despite being engaged. Gwynplaine goes there only to see if a a seeing woman could actually be attracted by him which would mean he could also be deserving of Dea's love.
Josiana's flirting is interrupted when she receives a decree from the Queen telling her that Gwynplaine is the rightful Lord Clancharlie and that she is to marry him for the estate. She starts laughing hysterically and Gwynplaine, thinking she's laughing at him, runs away, deeply hurt.

When he comes back to Dea, he has her feel his smile for the very first time. She accepts him as he is and he's finally happy.
Just then he's arrested and taken to prison. Ursus follows the guards and when a coffin is brought out - it's Hardquanonne's who had also been arrested - he thinks Gwynplaine is dead.
Barkilphedro confirms this when he lets Ursus know that he and his troop are banned from the country.
In reality, Gwynplaine is freed and taken to the House of the Lords to become a peer. The Lords are outraged over the clown they think is laughing at the Queen and them. After they see his face, they all laugh at him, though, and he refuses to marry Josiana and escapes.
When he hears that Ursus and Dea have been banned, he follows them to the docks, chased by Barkilphedro's men, but with the help of the villagers he manages to reach the docks which the ship has already left. Homo, however, hears his cries to Dea, jumps off the ship and mauls Barkilphedro just when he has tried to attack Gwynplaine. 
Gwynplaine and Homo swim to the ship and are pulled aboard. Happily reunited with Ursus and Dea, they sail away.

First of all, I didn't read the book and I won't. It has no happy ending and I was so glad the movie had one because I really felt with Gwynplaine.

I mentioned Conrad Veidt before, he was the somnambulist Cesare in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and Ivan the Terrible in "Waxworks", and also Lord Clancharlie in this movie, by the way.
To achieve the grin, Veidt had to wear prothestics with the corners of his mouth pulled back by hooks to expose the oversized teeth. It must have been extremely uncomfortable and prevented him from speaking. He had to express his emotions with the rest of his face as he couldn't move his mouth, and oh boy, did he deliver.
I had already mentioned Veidt's look in the "Waxworks" post, he had amazing eyes and they worked on me here as well. You could really feel the pain Gwynplaine was going through.
Originally, the role had been intended for Lon Chaney after his movies "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "The Phantom of the Opera", but he had left the studio, so it went to Veidt instead.

Other than Chaney's films, "The Man Who Laughs" was a box office failure. Critics thought it was too gruesome and the audience followed. Take away the grin, however, and the movie really isn't horror, it is "a melodrama, at times even a swashbuckler, but so steeped in Expressionist gloom that it plays like a horror film" as Roger Ebert puts it so aptly.
To me, it was about a man yearning for love and acceptance despite his looks.

Mary Philbin as Dea didn't really impress me that much, but of course her role was limited. It was the first time I've seen her, though.
The other woman, however - Duchess Josiana - honestly, she totally creeped me out from the start and I couldn't even tell you why exactly. It was not the seducing vamp role, it wasn't even the perverse way in which she seems to make Gwynplaine's grin a fetish which obviously scares and hurts him. Something just felt off to me.

The scheming Barkilphedro also creeped me out, but differently. He makes a very good and utterly despicable villain and I might have cried "Yes!" when Homo mauled him at the end.

To me, Homo was clearly the hero of the movie, anyway.
I even paused the movie to check "Does the dog die?" because I didn't put it past Barkilphedro to pull something bad. It was really quite satisfying that it ended the other way round.

Ursus tends to exaggerate the wide-eye look
throughout the movie, he's very dramatic.

The only complaint I have about the movie which I enjoyed much more than I had expected - I really didn't know it wasn't horror which is not my most favorite genre - is that it could have been a bit shorter without losing anything.
Oh, okay, and Gwynplaine's hairstyle was very weird at the back which kept distracting me a tad in some scenes.
Definitely a recommendation from me.


Selected sources:

1. Roger Ebert: The Man Who Laughs. On: RogerEbert.com, January 18, 2004
2. Matthew Beck: The Man Who Laughs (1928). On: The Movie Screen Scene, May 1, 2020