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The Man Who Laughs (1928) - a Silent Film Review


‘A king made me a clown! A queen made me a Peer! But first, God made me a man!’

A tragic monster, a blind virgin and a femme fatale who burns a hole in the cinema screen. A friendly father figure with a Latin name and a wolf called Homo. These are the main ingredients of 'The man who laughs' from 1928.


In 1928 this film was put on the market as a horror film. Although I think this film will not frighten many people today, the early monster film is one of my favorite film genres. What appeals to me in these old horror films is that the monster has a human side. This makes him a tragic figure that you as a viewer can feel sympathy for. I miss that in all the later horror film movements. And to be honest, I think those slasher, splatter, cannibal and zombie films are just filthy. Phantom movies can sometimes be fun if some humor is added to it, but most of the time the ghost makes only an appearance to add a shock effect.


But I digress. 'The man who laughs' is a film adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel 'L'Homme qui rit' from 1869. It is the story of Gwynplaine, the son of a proud nobleman who refuses to kiss the hand of King James. Not only does father end up in the torture chamber, the despot decides to mutilate the son for life by having a permanent grin cut on his face.


With this novel Hugo draws the comparison between the mutilation of Gwynplaine and human nature. On the one hand, he shows the idle nobility who, and on the other hand the passivity of the people who choose to laugh and submit. A theme that Hugo would write about with more often.


The film starts very promising. The editing is smooth and the story is told dramatically, but after 17 minutes the speed stagnates. We see a lot of fairground scenes, we see the popularity of Gwynplaine grow as a clown and we see the budding love between the monster and the blind girl he saved from freezing as a child. But to stretch this for 40 minutes seems a bit too much for me. Also the soundtrack of party people and fairground sounds start to irritate me after a while.


A year before this film was made, the first sound film was shown. Still, director Paul Leni decided to record this film without sound. Money could have been a reason, but I think the main reason was that Conrad Veidt, the leading man in this film, could not speak with his specially adapted false teeth. Because he had to laugh permanently, even with a sad facial expression, they had made false teeth that were too big for him. With hooks attached to the false teeth the corners of his mouth were pulled upwards. In order to be able to compete with the sound film, Leni and producer Carl Laemmie decided to make a separate soundtrack for the film.

When we are a good hour into the film, we get the moral of the film presented. Normally I would think; that was it, but the story gets a bit more pace and tension, so I start to enjoy the film a bit more again. And I even find the ending very moving, even the intervention of wolf Homo does not change that.


Although I think that the 40 minutes fairground scenes could have been brought back to 10 or 15 minutes, I think this film is worthwhile. Conrad Veidt was just a fantastic good actor and is still a pleasure to watch today. He gave a third dimension to his monster at a time when most actors played flat characters. He has made so much impression with this role that there are people who wonder whether Gwynplaine is inspired by The Joker from Batman. But the opposite is true, Batman creators Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson modeled The Joker after Conrad Veidts Gwynplaine.

The Man Who Laughs (1928) on IMDb
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