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Re-released on DVD and VHS by Kino Video in conjunction with Universal Pictures, October 2003 (110 min.), and by Sunrise Silents, October 2004 (139 min.).
Olga Baclanova’s best-known and most-seen performance may be as the trapeze artist Cleopatra in Freaks, but her second-best known role is a far better performance and more representative of her abilities as an actress. That role is as the Duchess Josiana in The Man Who Laughs. The Man Who Laughs stands as one of the most influential films of the silent era, but due to copyright restrictions this amazing film has until recently only made itself known to the general populace by occasional screenings at film conventions and through the bootleg market. Kino Video rectified this problem by releasing a beautiful new restoration of The Man Who Laughs on DVD in October of 2003 on special arrangement with Universal Pictures and with assistance from the Cineteca del Comune di Bologna, who conducted the restoration of the film using a sparkling 35mm foreign-release print. A year later, Sunrise Silents released a version transferred from a domestic-release print and added beautiful tints and tones. Thanks to the ingenuity of these two companies it is now possible to see the film again, and in two different versions at that. Loosely based on
Victor Hugo’s lesser-known novel L’Homme Qui Rit, Universal’s The
Man Who Laughs set the prototype for the legendary Universal Horror
films which were soon to follow. Although not itself a true horror
film, The Man Who Laughs provided many of the genre’s elements: the
bleak, Gothic settings; the creepy lighting techniques; the hard-hitting
thrills combined with caricaturish humor; and the twisted, monstrous make-up
of the main character. Many of these trademark elements were in turn
lifted and developed from the German expressionist films of the early
1920’s, whom the film’s director, Paul Leni, was involved with
personally as a director and, more importantly, as a set designer.
This alone makes The Man Who Laughs a must-have item for all students
and fans of the Universal Horror genre and of old horror films in general. About the Film
The story opens on a grim note in late 17th Century England, with His Majesty King James II sentencing rebel nobleman Lord Clancharlie to the Iron Lady, a brutal instrument of torture. Lord Clancharlie has come back to look for his young son, only to find that the King’s jester Barkilphedro has sold the boy to the Comprachicos, gypsy surgeons who mutilate young children and sell them as circus freaks. The Comprachicos carved a permanent grin on the boy’s face, so that regardless of what emotion he is feeling, his face is always fixed in a permanent grin, which makes everyone laugh when they see it. This young boy grows up to be Gwynplaine, a strolling player and clown famous all over England as “The Laughing Man”. At a booking at London’s Southwark Fair, one of the old Comprachico surgeons spots Gwynplaine and, in an attempt at blackmail, leaks to higher sources that this laughing mountebank is the rightful heir to Lord Clancharlie’s estate. The plan backfires, as the English royalty kill the surgeon and arrest Gwynplaine, putting him in prison and then making him a peer in the House of Lords. They then plan to force him into a marriage with Duchess Josiana, the current heir to Lord Clancharlie’s estate, in order that she may continue to hold title to the estate. But Gwynplaine protests the forced marriage and runs away, escaping at the last minute on a ship to Holland with the Queen’s guards in hot pursuit. The Man Who Laughs was the latest in a succession of large-scale costume pictures with grotesque themes, which Universal had struck gold with earlier in the decade. The first of these successes was a filmed version of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1923, and the second was of Gaston Le Roux’s The Phantom of the Opera in 1925. Both films feature Lon Chaney, Sr. in the grotesque starring role. Universal decided to continue the pattern, choosing The Man Who Laughs, another novel by Victor Hugo, as the subject of their next costume picture with a grotesque theme. By the time the film was ready for production, Lon Chaney, who had been the starring grotesque for the previous two horror films, had left Universal for a contract with MGM, and was therefore unavailable for the starring role. This problem was quickly solved in German actor Conrad Veidt, whom John Barrymore had brought over from Germany to appear in his United Artists-released costume feature The Beloved Rogue (1927), and who was already under contract with Universal. Although the starring grotesque role in The Man Who Laughs is undeniably Chaney-like, the movie certainly did fine without him, as Conrad Veidt hammers the role home using his eyes and body language alone to express a myriad of emotions that his mouth is unable to express due to the transfixed grin. Universal was so happy with Veidt’s performance that they had already begun considering him for another grotesque role: that of Dracula in the soon-to-be-legendary 1931 film of the same name. But this was not to be, as Veidt returned to Germany in 1929, concerned that his heavy German accent would not qualify him for top roles in American sound films.
Olga Baclanova plays the role of Duchess Josiana, a spoiled, debauched heiress who tries to lure Gwynplaine into a rendezvous until she learns that she must marry him in order to keep her fortune, upon which she immediately throws him away. Conrad Veidt was aware of Olga's international renown and her current availability in Hollywood and specifically requested her for this role. Olga plays the perfect slut in this picture, a woman whose low-minded, self-centered attitude is much more at home in the Mardi Gras-like atmosphere of the Southwark Fair than in the royal courts. She looks ever annoyed and unconcerned with the prim and proper etiquette of Queen Anne’s court, even though she can easily play the game of putting on airs. Her real excitement is in gossiping and partying, in seducing men and being ogled by them, and in watching ruffians tear each other apart over her. Olga's perceived sluttiness exudes from the picture so strongly that one would not guess the real-life Olga Baclanova to be anything but the hussy she is playing in the picture. One would also suspect that off the set she would not have cared one bit for lead actor Conrad Veidt, judging from the way she heartlessly disposes of him in the picture. And yet Olga revealed quite the opposite sentiment when author John Kobal interviewed her later in her life, telling him, “Conrad Veidt was wonderful. I was crazy about him!” This speaks strongly of what a good actress Olga Baclanova was and could be with the proper direction (as does her similarly convincing performance as a dejected wife who murders her husband in Josef von Sternberg's The Docks of New York [1928], a performance many critics considered to be her finest hour). Two of the other actors in The Man Who Laughs were alumni from former Universal director Erich von Stroheim’s productions with the company. Although Universal had fired Stroheim five years before for using up too much of the studio’s financial resources for his pictures, the studio kept some of the actors that he had brought to the studio, including Mary Philbin and Cesare Gravina. Mary Philbin had successfully played Agnes Urban in Stroheim’s production The Merry-Go-Round (1923) and the opera singer Christine in The Phantom of the Opera, and was therefore an obvious choice for the sympathetic role of Dea, the beautiful blind girl who performs in Gwynplaine’s show and who loves Gwynplaine regardless of his grotesque appearance. Italian-born Cesare Gravina plays Ursus, the writer and philosopher who manages Gwynplaine’s show and plays adopted father to both Gwynplaine and Dea. Gravina had played minor roles in The Merry-Go-Round and The Phantom of the Opera, as well as in Stroheim’s Foolish Wives (1921), but graduates here to a stronger supporting role.
But it was the people behind the scenes who would add the elements that would make The Man Who Laughs the influential picture that it is today. As mentioned earlier, Paul Leni had worked as a set designer and director in German expressionist films such as Backstairs (1921) and Waxworks (1924). When Universal brought him to America, he used the new and different American way of making pictures to his advantage, developing a marked style that combined elements of dark atmosphere, horror and humor, a pattern Universal would continue to use for many horror films to come. And beginning with The Man Who Laughs, Universal brought on make-up artist Jack Pierce, who created Gwynplaine’s death’s-dead grin. Pierce would forever leave his fingerprints on the Universal Horror genre by creating the make-up for most of the key Universal grotesques, including Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man, and many, many more. Universal began pre-production on The Man Who Laughs in May of 1927, and was well into the production of the film when an unforeseen event took place: Warner Bros.' The Jazz Singer, a part-talking film, became a tremendous overnight success in October of that year and began a rush of interest in talking pictures. When The Man Who Laughs premiered in New York on April 27, 1928, the interest in talking pictures was becoming insatiable. Universal did not want to lose their considerable investment in The Man Who Laughs, so they went to work creating a Movietone soundtrack for the film. After its New York premiere, the film received a limited first run as a roadshow attraction before its general release in July 6 as a silent film. It was then re-released with its completed soundtrack on November 4, 1928. Critical response was mostly favorable, and the film made a handsome profit for Universal. About the Sunrise Silents Edition
A caveat emptor for the purchaser is that the film is run at a slower speed (approximately 20 fps instead of 24 fps), which accounts for the extra 29 minutes of playtime. Sunrise Silents founder and proprietor Rich Olivieri explains in a five-minute commentary track at the end of the film that the reason Sunrise Silents chose to play the film at this speed is to, as they say, “preserve the emotional impact of [the] film”. Olivieri says in the commentary, “I like to get into the film, to empathize with the characters and appreciate the emotions the . . . actors are attempting to convey. I like to feel like I am an integral part of the film I am viewing.” Comparing this version of the film with the Kino
edition and adding to it some additional research, what we have found is
that this version attempts to portray the action of the characters in real
time, keeping their movements more lifelike and allowing the scenes more
time to play out and therefore sink in emotionally.
However, we learned from Jack Hardy of Grapevine Video that silent
films would have instructions on the leader tape telling the projectionist
at what rate to run the film, and that from 1923 onward most American films
would instruct the projector to run the film at 90 feet per minute, which
translates to 24 frames per second. What
we can conclude from this is that in the late silent era, American audiences
did not necessarily require that the action in the film run in real time.
Watching The Man Who Laughs closely, we see shots filmed in
various speeds, each to convey the emotion a certain way at a certain speed. The “soaking into a film” that Olivieri discusses is very much a convention of European films, and seems to be the choice of many silent film fans today. Watching the film from this point of view, we can understand why Sunrise Silents chose to release the film in this fashion and we can say that at many times this version of the film does indeed deliver on those premises. The only problem with this is that the Movietone soundtrack sounds noticeably slowed down, which sounds particularly harsh when one hears voices in the soundtrack, especially when the song “When Loves Comes Stealing” is sung in the film, although it sounds fine for most of the instrumental portions of the soundtrack. We will leave the judgment of which speed is better up to the tastes of the viewer, however this piece of information is an important one to consider when purchasing a copy of this film from either Sunrise Silents or from Kino. About the Restored
Kino Edition
A
short video presentation called “About the Restoration”, found amongst
the extras on the DVD, reveals to a small degree the difficulty the
restorers had in marrying the restored foreign-release print to the original
soundtrack (which was impeccably restored and provided by Universal
Studios). To save money on tariffs and overseas shipping, the studio
would cut two negatives, one for the domestic market and one to be shipped
overseas. The foreign negative would then be duplicated overseas and
appropriately distributed. The domestic and foreign negatives would have the
same cutting continuity, but would use different shots and different takes,
winding up with slightly different editing rhythms. In restoring the
film and preparing for its DVD release, the better-condition foreign
print had to be conformed to the domestic soundtrack, which required
nips and tucks and the occasional necessity of referring back to a 16mm
domestic print to achieve the appropriate effect. Sometimes this is
not a noticeable problem at all, but sometimes it does bring some jumps into
the continuity of the picture. For the long shots,
the cameramen photographed the same action with two separate cameras.
Therefore, the action looks the same in the two prints, except that they are
from two slightly different camera angles. Most of the time, the two cameras
would be side by side. But in a few of the medium shots, the cameras
would be up and down from each other. The most noticeable of the
latter type is at the beginning of Chapter Twelve, “The Show Must Go
On”. Dea is seated and staring off into space. Ursus comes in,
and after a long deliberation, Dea says, “It must be time for the
performance.” In the foreign release, the shot is taken from the
ceiling, looking down on the subjects. But in the domestic release,
the shot is taken from the waist level, looking slightly up at the subjects,
even though the action is completely the same.
The Duchess
Josiana, fresh from her bath, receives the blackmail letter from the
Comprachico surgeon, delivered in person by the court jester.
The bathing scene, though modest, is a little less modest in the
foreign release version, as is noted below. In
the close-up shots and some of the medium shots, separate takes are shot and
used for each negative. The shot sequence is exactly the same, but the
content of the shots is obviously different. Sometimes the shots are
so similar they are difficult to tell apart, but at other times there is a
noticeable difference between the two. As one compares the domestic and
foreign prints, it becomes obvious that the better and more fluid takes were
kept for the domestic negative, and the second-best takes were used for the
foreign release. This results in a slightly jumpy editing continuity
for the foreign release, with moments of brilliance amongst moments that
don’t work quite as well. Sometimes this even results in a
completely different set of emotions being conveyed in the action. For
instance, when Gwynplaine sneaks out at night to see the Duchess Josiana,
Dea looks more suspicious, at one point slowly turning her head like a live
mannequin when she hears the rustling of Gwynplaine leaving the van.
In the domestic release, she hears the noise, but does not seem to suspect
anything. Both are good, but this sequence in the foreign release
comes across in a creepier and more suspenseful manner, but with a less
fluid continuity, whereas the sequence in the domestic release is much
cuter, uses Mary Philbin’s personality to better effect, and flows
effortlessly. Throughout
the picture, Mary Philbin’s facial expressions tend to be more deadpan in
the foreign release, but more full and expressive in the domestic.
It’s quite possible that this was a calculated move, as Philbin received
top billing in the domestic release, but Veidt received top billing in the
foreign release. American audiences would expect a more vibrant
personality for their star, while as a leading lady in Europe, Philbin would
be expected to support Veidt. Despite
the long hours and hard work must have went into preparing this restored
version, there are
a several places where this restored version misses the mark altogether.
The most conspicuous is the absence of a key shot in the boudoir scene in
Chapter Ten, "A Private Audience". The original shot in the
domestic release is a long, lingering shot of a lingerie-clad Josiana sprawled on her bed, which
pans all the way down her body, stopping at her exposed legs for an
elongated gaze. The Sunrise Silents version has this shot, and the
same shot can also be seen on Kevin Brownlow’s TV documentary Universal
Horror, which has been shown on Turner Classic Movies. But the
corresponding shot in the Kino edition of the DVD begins with a close-up of
Olga’s face, and then stops when the camera is only beginning to pan
downward. Unfortunately, we lose some of the effect of Gwynplaine’s
surprise and shock at seeing a ready-and-willing Josiana laid out before
him, which this one shot single-handedly drives home. Another
fouled-up shot occurs at the Southwark Fair, where a clown jumps in place
and runs toward the camera with a Gwynplaine flyer. The original effect in
the domestic release (which again, the Sunrise Silent version has) was for this to be one continuous shot, with the clown
running toward the camera with the flyer and holding it there in front of
the camera. But in this release, the clown almost gets to the camera
when the film cuts to a shot taken from later in the film where hands are
taking copies of the flyer, again missing the intended effect. But
these are only minor flaws in a DVD release that is overall a vast
improvement on every bootleg copy of this film that has been available up to
this time. Another original
lobby card. The caption reads, "What's the news today - - Prince of
Scandalmongers?" The DVD release of The Man Who Laughs
contains a gallery of similar promotional material from around the world
to browse through.
The extras are plentiful and will give you plenty to look at after you’ve
finished watching the picture. The crown jewel of these extras
is a three-minute excerpt from the German documentary film Die Filmstadt
Hollywood, which features a number of German stars and other foreign
stars who were in Hollywood around the time The Man Who Laughs was
released, including Conrad Veidt with his wife Felicitas and baby girl
Viola, Greta Garbo, Camilla Horn, Dolores del Rio, and Emil Jannings with
his wife Gussy (who, interestingly enough, was also Conrad Veidt’s
ex-wife!). Also included is a documentary about the film, and an
excerpt of the unedited Italian release print used for the restoration,
which features some beautiful (and somewhat expressionistic) illustrated
Italian-language title cards. It’s too bad that a full release of
this Italian version is not yet available!
The
rest of the extras on the Kino Edition will add some reading and browsing
pleasure that will give you a little more insight into the film and the
promotion surrounding it. A twenty-minute documentary offers many
facts on the production of the film, and the booklet essay “An
Introduction” features more facts not covered by the documentary. An
excerpt from the end of the original novel by Victor Hugo reveals a sad
ending to the story that is quite different from the happy ending in the
film. The short video presentation “About the Restoration” briefly
discusses the restoration of the film and gives a visual comparison of the
different camera angles in the foreign release and the domestic release.
This presentation also shows a visual comparison of Olga Baclanova’s nude
bathing scene in the two versions. This bathing scene, although
brief and quite modest, is not quite as modest in the foreign release, as
the foreign release (and also the Kino version of the film) leaves in a few
glimpses of nudity that the domestic release completely conceals.
There is also a gallery of photographs from the film, including make-up
tests, production photos, and a couple of stills from deleted scenes, as
well as a gallery of promotional material and memorabilia connected to the
film from seven different countries and in five different languages. These
extras are well chosen and will definitely give depth and breadth to the
viewing experience. If
you enjoy good silent films, are a fan of the Universal Horror genre, are
intrigued by the influential nature of this picture, or just want to be
thoroughly seduced by Olga Baclanova, we cannot recommend these two DVD
editions of The Man Who Laughs enough. You can order the Kino
version from your local video store, from Amazon.com,
or directly from Kino
Video, and you can order the Sunrise Silents version directly from Sunrise
Silents. |
