No sponsor today (well, yesterday, as I didn’t get to view this until late last evening...but what’s a Halloween Horrorfest without a hiccup?), so the Randomizer decided to pull a fast one on me by giving me a film that’s not a horror film--but which has had some strong impact on pop culture, and which is frequently lumped into the horror genre due to its make-up effects, and ...well...fuck it, it’s a great movie and I want to write about it and said impact. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to discuss
The Man Who Laughs.
In the 16th century, the son of a Duke is kidnapped by King James II, sold to gypsies, mutilated so that he sports a grotesque, perpetual grin and abandoned. The boy, Gynplaine, finds a blind baby girl and both are taken in by the self-styled philosopher Ursus (Cesaere Gravina). Both grow into adulthood, and this makeshift family becomes a profitable theatrical troupe--especially Gynplaine (now played masterfully by Conrad Veidt), who has become a famous clown. But he is recognized and ends up a pawn in the former Jester Barkilphedro’s (Brandon Hurst) scheme to gain more power in the court of Queen Anne--and get revenge on the Dutchess Josiana (Olga Vladimirovna Baklanova), who was given the Duke’s estate and is abusing him.
Now this is a romantic adventure based on a novel by Victor Hugo. One of Hugo’s other novels,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, had been adapted into a film that, due primarily to Lon Chaney Sr.'s make-up, is frequently referred to as a horror film...and Universal wanted this to be Chaney’s follow-up, but Chaney insisted on making
The Phantom of The Opera instead. So this role went to Veidt, and God Bless Him for being able to convey so much with his eyes, given that Jack Pierce make-up job that involved special dentures and hooks pulling back his lips.
(For that matter, God Bless all the actors from the silent era who went under make-up, frequently endangering their faces, their senses and their bodies in the service of cinema. Now let me get off my soapbox)
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about Roger Ebert’s quote ‘No good movie is too long, and no bad movie is too short.’ This is an hour and fifty minutes, and yet it feels like it flies along. Director Paul Leni seems to know just how long we need for each scene, and the movie smoothly moves forward even when taking a brief break for comic relief--and I love the fact that Stuart Holmes’ Lord Dirry-Moir may be comic relief, but Leni delights in showing us he can kick
so much ass. Leni was a German Expressionist director, and his influence shows in some sequences; I was particularly struck by the sequence where young Gynplaine wanders through a hellish landscape of hanged men to find the baby Dea in the arms of her dead mother, and the ramparts and rooftops that occupy the final chase scene. It looks unlike what it is, which is probably why we misremember it as a horror film.
Oh, and that pop culture influence--both Pierce and set designer Charles D. Hall were instrumental in shaping the Universal Monster Cycle of the 30‘s and 40‘s, a collection of films that helped codify horror as a genre until well into the 60‘s. And there’s the fact that someone--I’m betting Bill Finger, although I’m sure both Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson would claim otherwise--was inspired by Viedt’s look to create The Joker. I also think Stan Lee must’ve liked this film, because the relationship between Gylplaine and Dea has its echoes in The Thing’s affair with Alicia Masters.
This is a fun film, and I highly recommend you give it a watch. Get those dang prejudices about silent films out of your head and just let the awesomeness overwhelm you!
Tomorrow our sponsor is the great Kelly Logue, who is responsible for fashioning the website for the ‘first gen’ movie podcast I was co-host of,
Better In The Dark as well as the New Olympians series of super-hero prose ebooks. His choice will allow me to indulge in one of my super-crushes, the McG-directed, Samara Weaving-starring
The Babysitter! Kelly will be representing The Wounded Warriors Family Support.
There are
No More Sponsorship Slots Left in the Halloween Horrorfest this year...but you can force me into overtime, continuing my Gauntlet of Ghoulishness into November! You have four options if you wish to do so:
1)
You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level. Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!
2)
You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi. Suggested donation is $3
3)
You can make a donation to Black Lives Matter. Suggested donation is $10. Please forward your receipt to me as proof.
4)
You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.
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