The Man Who Laughs (1928)

Carl Laemmle's Universal Pictures had been making a noticeable niche for itself as being the production company with a strong hold on the horror film market with a library that included the very popular films The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera. The studio library would soon include classics such as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, and The Mummy, but in the middle of all that is lost The Man Who Laughs which has its own history and interesting story of a misunderstood man trapped in a hideous shell.

The production of this film starts with the success of previous Lon Chaney classics The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Phantom of the Opera. Lemmle wished to continue this trend of stories with the mix of marvelous make-up, but with Lon Cheney now under contract with MGM would send Universal in search of a new leading man in their next horror endeavor. Universal acquired the rights to story by Victor Hugo, the same man that wrote such classics as Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Misérables, and Lemmle hoped to produce the same success as he had with his other Hugo big screen adaption.

The film's story falls shares many similarities with that of Hunchback. The picture is set in late seventeenth century England and follows the character of Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt), a man with a hideous disfigurement of a horrifyingly grotesque smile subjected to him as a young child for the deeds of his nobleman father dishonoring King James II. Due to the hideous smile, he keeps his mouth covered most of the time and makes his living as a traveling act as the "Laughing Man" in the circus. His closest companions in his life are Ursus, the old man that took him in as a orphaned child, and Dea (Mary Philbin), whom is blind and has never seen his disfigurement but only knows him as the kind soul that he is on the inside. The tragic story unfolds as it is discovered of Gwynplaine's natural born status as son of a nobleman which leads to him being conspired against by the crown of England and the fellow noblemen. As he falls in love with Dea, she and Ursus are banished from England, never to return. Gwynplaine runs and escaped from the noblemen that plan to use him and claim his born wealth despite being repelled from his hideous face. He would get past all the guards of England to climb aboard the boat with Dea, where he would continue to live with the one person that sees him for his true self.

Despite the film being actually a romantic melodrama, sharing the love story of Gwynplaine and Dea, the picture would be classified as a horror for the main character's gruesome smile. Conrad Veidt was brought aboard on this project for Lemmle looked for German expressionism to influence this film (which included German director Paul Leni) and Veidt's best known work was in the role as the strange, dark being in the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Veidt would be subjected to the struggles of creating the grotesque smile which included hooks to pull back the corners of his mouth, make-up to cover the hooks, and false teeth that seemed to enlarge the smile even more. It was said to be very painful, but Veidt made it work and would create a smiling face that shocked and horrified audiences. Today most audiences would not recognize the charter and where it came from, but would recognize rather for the famous character that it would later inspire, Batman's arch-enemy The Joker with his lanky build and large evil smile, but the major difference is Gwynplaine is a hero and while the Joker is perhaps the most popular a villain to one of comic's most popular heroes.

The film was a silent picture, but due to the advent of sound the release would be help back to add an audio track of sound effects, crowd noises, and even a song made special for the picture, "When Love Comes Smiling." The picture was best made for the silent era, despite the birth of sound pictures, for Veidt's device that created his grin made him absolutely unable to speak, but his character would talk with the help of silent film title cards. So to was the actress Mary Philbin not meant for the sound audiences. Best known for he work in Universal's classic Phantom of the Opera, she would retire from acting within a couple of years due to her inability to make the transition to sound. Veidt would go back to Germany, but would later flee the country as WWII approached moving to the UK and eventually the US, where he would one day act in Casablanca as German Major Heinrich Strasser

Despite the film costing the large some of about $1 million, the picture released to a split audience. In time the film would be lost in the shuffle of Universal's other major hits and cult classics. The film had heart and some inspired European imagery, but lacked the bang that would make it a film worth noting in the folds of time.