The Man Who Laughs
Tags: revenge, cruelty, romantic, melodrama

Plot synopsis:
In late 17th-century England, a homeless boy named Gwynplaine rescues an infant girl during a snowstorm, her mother having frozen to death whilst feeding her. They meet an itinerant carnival vendor who calls himself Ursus, and his pet wolf, Homo. Gwynplaine's mouth has been mutilated into a perpetual grin; Ursus is initially horrified, then moved to pity, and he takes them in. Fifteen years later, Gwynplaine has grown into a strong young man, attractive except for his distorted visage. The girl, now named Dea, is blind, and has grown into a beautiful and innocent young woman. By touching his face, Dea concludes that Gwynplaine is perpetually happy. They fall in love. Ursus and his surrogate children earn a meagre living in the fairs of southern England. Gwynplaine keeps the lower half of his face concealed. In each town, Gwynplaine gives a stage performance in which the crowds are provoked to laughter when Gwynplaine reveals his grotesque face.
The spoiled and jaded Duchess Josiana, the illegitimate daughter of King James II, is bored by the dull routine of court. Her fiancé, David Dirry-Moir, to whom she has been engaged since infancy, tells the Duchess that the only cure for her boredom is Gwynplaine. Josiana attends one of Gwynplaine's performances, and is aroused by the combination of his virile grace and his facial deformity. Gwynplaine is aroused by Josiana's physical beauty and haughty demeanor. Later, an agent of the royal court arrives at the caravan and compels Gwynplaine to follow him. Gwynplaine is ushered to a dungeon in London, where a physician named Hardquannone is being tortured to death. Hardquannone recognizes Gwynplaine, and identifies him as the boy whose abduction and disfigurement Hardquannone arranged twenty-three years earlier. A flashback relates the doctor's story.
In the year 1682, in the reign of James II, one of the King's enemies was Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie, Marquis of Corleone, who had remained faithful to the English republic and had emigrated to Switzerland. Upon the baron's death, the King arranged the abduction of his two-year-old son and legitimate heir, Fermain. The King sold Fermain to a band of wanderers called "Comprachicos": criminals who mutilate and disfigure children, who are then forced to beg for alms or who are exhibited as carnival freaks.
Confirming the story is a message in a bottle recently brought to Queen Anne. The message is a final confession from the Comprachicos, written in the certainty that their ship was about to founder in a storm. The message explains how they renamed the boy "Gwynplaine", and abandoned him in a snowstorm before setting to sea. David Dirry-Moir is the illegitimate son of Lord Linnaeus. Now that Fermain is known to be alive, the inheritance promised to David on the condition of his marriage to Josiana will instead go to Fermain.
Dea is saddened by Gwynplaine's protracted absence. An agent of court lies to Ursus that Gwynplaine is dead. The frail Dea becomes ill with grief. The authorities condemn them to exile for illegally using a wolf in their shows.
Josiana has Gwynplaine secretly brought to her so that she may seduce him. She is interrupted by the delivery of a pronouncement from the Queen, informing Josiana that David has been disinherited, and the Duchess is now commanded to marry Gwynplaine. Josiana rejects Gwynplaine as a lover, but dutifully agrees to marry him.
Gwynplaine is instated as Lord Fermain Clancharlie, Marquis of Corleone, and permitted to sit with the House of Lords. When he addresses the peerage with a fiery speech against the gross inequality of the age, the other lords are provoked to laughter by Gwynplaine's clownish grin. David defends him and challenges a dozen Lords to duels, but he also challenges Gwynplaine; the new Marquis' speech inadvertently condemned David's mother, who abandoned David's father to become the mistress of Charles II.
Gwynplaine renounces his peerage and travels to find Ursus and Dea. He is nearly driven to suicide when he is unable to find them. Learning that they are to be deported, he locates their ship and reunites with them. Dea is ecstatic, but abruptly dies. Ursus faints. Gwynplaine, as though in a trance, walks across the deck while speaking to the dead Dea, and throws himself overboard. When Ursus recovers, he finds Homo sitting at the ship's rail, howling at the sea.

Review: Conrad Veidt plays the grown Gwynplaine who travels around the English countryside with his adopted parent Ursus the Philosopher and the young Dea, the girl whose life he saved as a baby.
Here, in the familiar 19th century figure of the suffering clown, his performance is transfixing: whether tremulous as the girl's hand explores his face, or mortified by the laughter of the House of Lords, Veidt's face makes the role more than a simple martyr: he is man struggling with unjust destiny ["A king made me a clown, a queen made me a lord, but first God made me a man!"].Big-hearted and unashamedly dramatic, this is clearly the work of Victor Hugo, rags to riches in scope, offering consolation in love.
While some scenes are staged in darkness to rival a film noir, Leni also floods Veidt and Philbin with light, often focusing on one nuance per shot, an old-fashioned but effective strategy.Filmed on the cusp of the sound revolution, this semi-silent has added sound effects and rather vague non-stop music but no spoken dialogue..
Like most artistic "isms," expressionism is somewhat difficult to define; in general, however, it refers to a style in which the artist is much less interested in capturing external realities than in portraying emotional and psychological states; consequently, expressionism is often fantastic in a visual sense--and when it combined with the darker edges of Germanic folklore it gave rise to a series of classic and near-classic silent films, including THE CABINET OF DR.
Drawn from a minor work by Victor Hugo, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS was first intended as a Chaney vehicle; by the time it began production, however, Chaney had decamped to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer--and Universal assigned Conrad Veidt to the starring role under director Paul Leni.
Both men had been deeply involved in the German expressionist movement, and the resulting film was a melodrama so deeply steeped in the grotesque that it came to be regarded as a horror film.THE MAN WHO LAUGHS concerns a child named Gwynplaine who is caught up in royal intrigue and is deliberately disfigured, his mouth cut into a ghastly, inflexible grin.
Abandoned, he rescues an blind infant girl; both are taken in by the kindly Ursus (Cesare Gravina.) Years later, and entirely unaware of his aristocratic origin, Gwynplaine (Veidt) and the beautiful blind maiden Dea (Mary Philbin) are popular carnival actors, appearing in a play written by Ursus--but although he loves Dea, Gwynplaine is deeply humiliated by his eternal grin and feels he can never marry.
Director Leni endows his world with grotesque faces, vulgar sexuality, and deliberately twisted visuals--particularly so in the first half of the film, which is greatly famous for the sequence in which the abandoned child stumbles through a snow storm beneath gallows bearing rotting corpses to find the infant Dea. Veidt's hideous grin, an early creation by make up genius Jack Pierce, is remarkably effective; the performances are memorable, and although the second half of the film is excessively predictable the whole thing goes off with a bang.Although it was hardly a failure, in 1928 THE MAN WHO LAUGHS proved too gruesome for many audiences, and the rise of sound films drove it into a too-rapid obscurity.
I always think that Paul Leni's "The Man Who Laughs" was another silent horror piece with a lot of good ideas and thrilling scenes.
As too one of the most beautiful films that i have ever seen too."The Man Who Laughs", based on Victor Hugo's novel, told us the story of Gwynplaine (Great performance of Conrad Veidt, who too appeared as Cesare in famous "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", participate in the first gay themed film in history "Diffrent from the Others" and "Casabalanca") a man that, when he was little, was operated by an evil man and now, his face always have a long smile.
I wouldn't consider The Man Who Laughs a horror movie, but a touching melodrama about a man whose appearance is horrific.Gwynplaine is a very sympathetic, likeable character, and Conrad Veidt does an excellent job of conveying his inner torment and sadness with subtle eye movements and gestures.
Years later, Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt) becomes a successful clown, and together with the blind Dea (Mary Philbin), they present plays for common people.
When the evil jester Barkilphedro (Brandon Hurst) discloses the origin of Gwynplaine, he plots a means to be rewarded by the Queen, jeopardizing the love of Gwynplaine and Dea.The Man Who Laughs" is a magnificent classic based on the famous Victor Hugo's novel.
I have never read Victor Hugo's novel, but it seems that the conclusion in the original story is less optimistic than in this movie, but anyway I loved this film.
THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928) is the tale of Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt), who was disfigured as a boy as retaliation for his father's refusal to pay obeisance to King James II.
Crowds laugh at Gwynplaine for his appearance, and he feels that no woman can love him because of his face (except for the blind Dea).
The narrative drags a bit in places but comes to a pretty epic and satisfying conclusion.As far as the performances go, Conrad Veidt is compelling as Gwynplaine, haunting and expressive even though required to hold his face in the contorted laugh to which the title alludes.
Conrad Veidt and Olga Baclanova give compelling performances, with good support from Mary Philbin, and the style of the movie is quite intriguing.
Veidt cares for Philbin, but is distracted by the possible love of a sighted woman, the seductive Olga Baclanova (as Duchess Josiana).Paul Leni's "The Man Who Laughs" makes up for a story that goes to the dogs (quite literally!) by being too beautifully produced to dismiss.
******** The Man Who Laughs (4/27/28) Paul Leni ~ Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin, Olga Baclanova, Brandon Hurst.
Conrad Veidt (the somnambulist Cesare in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) is brilliant as Gwynplaine, delivering a great performance without being able to use the expressions of his mouth, its movement being greatly restricted by the effects makeup.
You may also recognize the actress playing Dea as Mary Philbin from Universal's 1925 Phantom of the Opera.The MovieTone soundtrack synchronization made this a step up from old silent film scores as it adds things like sound effects and crowd noises.
The studio first envisioned this as a talkie, but I think it is lucky for us that they scrapped that idea (as I will explain in the next paragraph).Pierce's makeup work for surgically disfigured main character Gwynplaine involved a set of dentures with wires holding the smile wide and thereby making delivery of dialogue by actor Conrad Veidt nearly impossible.
A really good film or story needs to be able to trust the audience to figure things out and understand without needing to be hit over the head with a sledgehammer or have everything spelled out for them in giant neon signs.STORY: Gwynplaine was the son of a British Lord who was taken by his father's enemies and sent off to the gypsy Comanchicos who performed cruel surgical work, which involved cutting his face to give him a permanent exaggerated smile.
INTERESTING SIDE NOTE: Whether or not Gwynplaine's look in this film influenced the character design of (Batman's nemesis) The Joker has been disputed by some, as has the claim that Bob Kane himself created that comic book villain (it may have been the work of one of his assistants), but the similarities are rather striking and the possibility has helped to bring more people to see this great film.A brilliant film that I highly recommend!.
I wait for almost two years to finally be able to see this cinematic jewel and when I heard a local network was going to pass a restored copy I cried like hell of happiness.I will say only one thing:Is Conrad Veidt at his prime.His performance does not make Gwynplaine horrific,it makes him the most sublime human being on earth and is impossible you don't fall in love with him.The presence of Mary Philbin as the gracious Dea is very helpful.Forget Conrad as the Sleepwalker Cesare or as the handsome Major Strasser.Gwynplaine Is the perfomance of a lifetime of the most talented and beautiful actor of a lifetime.
Conrad Veidt, the great star of Weimar Germany, provides a truly sympathetic performance, made even more difficult that by the nature of his makeup which limited him to showing emotion only through his eyes and hands.
I wait for almost two years to finally be able to see this cinematic jewel and when I heard a local network was going to pass a restored copy I cried like hell of happiness.I will say only one thing:Is Conrad Veidt at his prime.His perfomance does not make Gwynplaine horrific,it makes him the most sublime human being on earth and is impossible you don't fall in love with him.The presence of Mary Philbin as the gracious Dea is very helpful.Forget Conrad as the Sleepwalker Cesare or as the handsome Major Strasser.Gwynplaine Is the perfomance of a lifetime of the most talented and beautiful actor of a lifetime.
The charismatic, intriguing Baclanova is the fun-loving duchess who comes between them.One DVD edition aimed at the horror crowd has packaging that shows Veidt tinted a hideous green-- which does not appear in the movie itself.
Of course Mary Philbin is an angel and gives probably her best performance as Dea. Brandon Hurst is wonderfully smarmy as the lecherous jester and steamy Olga Baclanova is great as the spoiled duchess who likes to let her hair down and play with the peasant class.
What a shame it was that two of the silent era's best directors, Leni and Murnau, never got a chance to explore sound film.The Man Who Laughs isn't that easy to find, but is well worth looking for..
The famous production company hired the visionary director Paul Leni ("Waxworks") and charismatic protagonist Conrad Veidt ("The Hands of Orlac") in order to peer with the previous success films, but unfortunately the invention of sound in films and the very first movies with audible dialogs were in 1928 the main reasons why "The Man who Laughs" sadly never received the fame and recognition it fully deserved.
The film too often gets a little bit tedious and repetitive, but plenty of things remain worth seeing, like the continuously stellar acting performances from the ensemble cast, too many to mention visual highlights captured by Paul Leni's gifted art-director's eye and a genuinely uncanny atmosphere every time that diabolical jester Barkilphedro in on screen.
A young noble mans son Gwynplaine (played as an adult by Conrad Veidt) is kidnapped by a political enemy.
Based on Victor Hugo's 1869 novel L'Homme qui Rit, The Man Who Laughs starred German import Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine, a carnival freak doomed to live life wearing a perpetual grin carved on his face by Dr Hardquannone (George Siegman because his father, Lord Clancharlie (Allan Cavan), had offended England's King James II (Sam De Grasse).
The Man Who Laughs is a silent film that very cleverly get's it's message and it's story across very well and this a silent film with no sound at all and I still felt emotional for the character's in the film.Conrad Veidt played Gwynplanie and through out the film he had a lot of make-up on his face for the effect of the big smile for his character; it must have been really difficult for him to show any emotion by all that make-up, but he nailed it by showing as much emotion as he can by simply his eyes which people say "The eyes are the windows to the soul", and I felt it all that in his eyes, just like Bane from The Dark Knight Rise who had a mask that covered half of his face and still can be scary and the kind of guy that nobody mess with, all by his eyes and Conrad Veidt also did the same thing.All the cast did a great job in their roles and Olga Baclanova can play a right nasty bitch but she did it really well.
The directing is really good allowing some really impressive and heart felt moments that the cast and the director got right.My only my problems with the film is that at times it dragged a little bit in some parts, and that's really it for problems.Overall The Man Who Laughs is a freaking fantastic movie with scenes that really played with my heart strings..
The boy has a permanent smile etched into his face and grows up to be a sideshow clown (Conrad Veidt) who's in love with a blind girl.
I had been familiar with the image of Veidt grinning for years and had always presumed this film to be a horror/dark thriller picture.In actuality it's a sweeping costume epic but with an extraordinarily unusual central story.Written down the story would seem melodramatic, even corny ,yet the strangeness of it's performances,the bizarre beauty of it's imagery combine to make a truly unforgettable experience.My expectations of a creaking story with perhaps some interesting scenes were replaced by an awe struck entertainment.Afterwards i was surprised how well a reasonably complicated story was told without dialogue and a minimum of title cards,Paul Leni had developed a truly sophisticated visual story telling technique.Watching you realise how the advent of sound actually restricted the development of film in the following decade.Around three quarters of the way through the film looses its footing somewhat and becomes a little unfocused but rallies in time for a rousing climax.
I watched ''The Man Who Laughs'' just yesterday, curious to see the character that bob Kane based to create the famous villain from the Batman series, The Joker.This movie, originally a novel by Victor Hugo,takes place in England from the seventeenth century, when a young son from a nobleman is sold to the gypsies Compranchicos(illegal child buyers) that carved a permanent grin on his face.
Not only the ugly looks and the love for a beauty, but also the fact that both Cyrano and Gwynplaine are good people, makes these characters very similar in many ways to me..
The movie tells the story of Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt), who bears a face disfigured by child torture into a permanent smile, because his noble father refuse to obey the King of England.
He makes a living with his adopted father, Ursus (Cesare Gravina) & girlfriend, a beauty blind woman named Dea (Mary Philbin), traveling town to town, performing plays.
While, it's true, that the carnival freak-like grin on the character Gwynplaine's face, was a direct inspiration for The Joker character in Batman comic folklore, and yes, the movie does have some dark grotesque moments, like the Iron Maiden scene or the half frozen hanging skeletons, but that's only in the beginning of the film.
The Man Who Laughs is one of the best love stories of the silent era and it is in essence the best Lon Chaney movie not starring Lon Chaney.
Conrad Veidt gives the performance of his career as Gwynplaine, a man of royal blood who is punished for the sins of his father.
He has a horrible grin carved into his face so he is forever smiling on the outside or "Laughing at his fool of a father" Gwynplaine is given this horrible scar by the infamous gypsies the Comprachios, he is abandoned by them and is taken in by a carnival traveler called Ursus along with a poor blind baby who is named Dea. Gwynplaine grows up a shattered man with no sense of pride in his life other than his deep love for Dea. He feels as if he doesn't deserve Dea and has to become something more than the "clown" the world has cruelly dubbed him as.Geez those who think Gwynplaine is the inspiration for the Joker couldn't be farther from the truth.
So Universal turned to the country of it's founder's birth and in particular a thriller called "Waxworks" to find both a new director, Paul Leni, and a star, Conrad Veidt.The very grim Victor Hugo story is about an outlaw band - the dreaded Comprachicos, whose surgeon roves the country carving huge grotesque grins onto young children's faces, forcing them to grow up to become side show freaks.
The England that Paul Leni has conjured up is a bleak and haunted world.As the years go on Gwynplaine (Veidt) becomes the "laughing man", a strolling player in the troupe of Father Ursus (Cesare Gravina), the one person who didn't turn his back on the orphans, but to Dea (beautiful Mary Philbin), who cannot see his hideous grin, he will always be goodness and light.
The grotesque Man Who Laughs, Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt) worships Dea (Mary Philbin), a beautiful blind girl he rescued as an infant, until he is used by the Queen to usurp a Duchess who is undeserving of her title.Producer Carl Laemmle sought to exploit the Gothic horror craze Universal Pictures established with The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of The Opera (1925), once again adapting a romantic and darkly sinister Victor Hugo novel.
Nevertheless, I still wanted to watch it because it starred the silent film legend Conrad Veidt and the beautiful Mary Philbin.I thought the film was rather slow, but I still enjoyed it rather immensely.
Universal studio, having just lost their star, Lon Chaney ("Hunchback of Notre Dame", etc.) to MGM, imported the German director Paul Leni and star Conrad Veidt to compensate with this extravagant historical costume/action/horror/romance film.
Gwynplaine's appearance in "The Man Who Laughs" was the inspiration the Batman comic book villain, The Joker.
He played Cesare, the Somnambulist in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and starred in Leni's film "Waxworks." Gwynplaine is a more difficult role because the immobility of his disfigured face prevents Veidt from doing much more than emoting with his eyebrows.