The Man Who Laughs (1928)

Directed by

Paul Leni

Genre

drama film, silent film, horror film, romance film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 50m

Rated

12

Rating

7.3 of 10 from 225 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young boy is disfigured into a permanent grin by a king's decree. He grows up to perform in a traveling show with a blind woman he loves. They face persecution from aristocrats and a dangerous attraction from a duchess.

melancholicgothicexpressionistslow-burnromantictragicmoodygrotesqueatmospheric

What happens

The Man Who Laughs is a 1928 American synchronized sound romantic drama film directed by the German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized musical score with sound effects using both sound-on-disc and sound-on-film processes. The film is an adaptation of Victor Hugo's 1869 novel of the same name, and it stars Mary Philbin as the blind Dea and Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine. The film is known for the grotesque grin on the character Gwynplaine's face, which often leads it to be classified as a horror film. Film critic Roger Ebert stated "The Man Who Laughs is a melodrama, at times even a swashbuckler, but so steeped in expressionist gloom that it plays like a horror film." The Man Who Laughs is a romantic melodrama similar to films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The film was one of the earliest Universal Pictures films that made the transition from silent films to sound films using the Movietone sound system introduced by William Fox. The film was completed in August 1927 but was set for general release as a "sound" film in October 1928 with sound effects and a musical score which included the song "When Love Comes Stealing". The film entered the public domain in the United States in 2024. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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