The Last Laugh (1924)

Original title

Der letzte Mann

Directed by

F. W. Murnau

Genre

drama film, silent film

Country

Weimar Republic, Germany

Runtime

1h 41m

Rated

0

Rating

7.8 of 10 from 356 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A hotel doorman loses his job and faces the shame of his demotion. The film follows his psychological struggle to maintain dignity in his lower middle-class life.

melancholicintimatevisually expressiveslow-burnbleakcharacter-drivenpoignantsomber

What happens

The Last Laugh (German: Der letzte Mann, transl. The Last Man) is a 1924 German silent film directed by German director F. W. Murnau from a screenplay written by Carl Mayer. The film stars Emil Jannings and Maly Delschaft. Stephen Brockmann summarized the film's plot as, "a nameless hotel doorman loses his job". It is a cinematic example of the Kammerspielfilm or "chamber-drama" genre, which follows the style of short, sparse plays of lower middle-class life that emphasized the psychology of the characters rather than the sets and action. The genre tried to avoid the intertitles (title cards) of spoken dialogue or description that characterize most silent films, in the belief that the visuals themselves should carry most of the meaning. The film was voted number 11 on the prestigious Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo. In 1955, the film was remade starring Hans Albers. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

More like this

• Husbands or Lovers (1924)
• The House by the Sea (1924)
• The Third Watch (1924)
• Verkrachte Existenzen (1924)
• Hedda Gabler (1925)
• Rosenmontag (1924)
• The Golden Calf (1924)
• The Power of Darkness (1924)