I’d heard of The Man Who Laughs many times, starting with my one and only film history class, but never had an opportunity to watch it. What a film! Made at the tail end of the silent film era (the film is, in fact, not truly silent, though there is no synchronized dialogue) and one of the last examples of the German Expressionist film movement that was to shape horror films for decades to come, The Man Who Laughs is a rich film.
The plot is surprisingly complex, but to synopsize: Conrad Veidt plays Gwynplaine, a nobleman’s son, who is disfigured—by order of King James– as a child by a sadistic surgeon as part of a punishment for Gwynplaine’s father (also played by Veidt, incidentally), who is then put to death. Gwynplaine is left alone when his captors flee the country and discovers a blind baby still alive in her mother’s arms. He rescues the baby (Dea, portrayed by Mary Philbin) and they are both saved, and raised, by a travelling philosopher and vaudeville show producer. Gwynplaine doesn’t know he is heir to a fortune and a peer of England and a former court jester, who now serves Josiana (Olga Baclanova), the Duchess who now has Gwynplaine’s rightful property, is determined to see that he never gets it. Gwynplaine, for his part, has fallen in love with Dea—who can’t see his disfigured smile and loves him solely for who he is.
Conrad Veidt is simply amazing. Not only does he convey complex emotions without the use of his voice, but he does so while wearing a face deforming device that shape his mouth into a permanent rictus and horrific dentures that basically immobilize the lower half of his face. Surely Batman appropriated this (or Victor Hugo’s original story)…
In one of the most stunning scenes in the movie, Josiana (who doesn’t yet know that Gwynplaine is not just a nobleman, but owner of the property and fortune she is enjoying, attempts to seduce Gwynplaine. Though Gwynplaine loves Dea, he is sorely tempted (and who wouldn’t be, Josiana positively drips with haughty, contemptuous sexuality and I was surprised at the relative raciness of a few scenes)… until she, too, laughs at him and he flees, in search of Dea. The amazing part of this scene is that Gwynplaine is clearly fleeing in his head well before he can flee Josiana’s bedchambers, but he is torn between the physical attraction and his growing psychological repulsion.
Another unforgettable moment occurs when Gwynplaine—who is an honest, humble and almost fatally weak man—finally takes a stand at his induction into the House of Lords, buffeted by laughter and confusion by the rest of the Peers, who think he is laughing at the Queen (and at them) when he refuses the Queen’s order to marry Josiana. “The King made me a man,” Gwynplaine shouts, “The Queen made me a Peer! But first, God made me a man!”
The sets and lighting deserve notice here as well. I don’t have enough experience to know whether they were exceptional in the genre, but they were certainly exceptional for me as a viewer.
For people like me, who don’t watch many silent movies, the mannerisms of the actors can come off as overacting and mugging… but 20 minutes or so into the film, intrigued by the sets and the fine performances that were already becoming obvious—and the classic beauty and beast setup—all that was forgotten and I was simply engrossed.
