Rating of
3.5/4
"God made me a man!"
Matthew Brady - wrote on 12/09/14
Where people say that smiling is the best cure for sadness, there's never been a story like this that takes a nice and joyful smile that everybody loves to see and make into a curse for a man for the rest of his years.
Based on Victor Hugo's 1869 novel L'Homme qui Rit, The Man Who Laughs starred German import Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine, a carnival freak doomed to live life wearing a perpetual grin carved on his face by Dr Hardquannone (George Siegman because his father, Lord Clancharlie (Allan Cavan), had offended England's King James II (Sam De Grasse). Taken in as a child by Ursus, a mountebank (Cesare Gravina), Gwynplaine grows up alongside the beautiful but blind Dea (Mary Philbin). They fall in love but Gwynplaine refuses to marry her because his hideous face makes him feel unworthy. Queen Anne (Josephine Crowell), meanwhile, has ascended the throne and when she learns from her predecessor's evil jester Barkilphedro (Brandon Hurst) that the recalcitrant Duchess Josiana (Olga Baclanova) is in possession of Lord Clancharlie's estates, she decrees that the royal femme fatale must marry Gwynplaine, the rightful heir. Josiana, who has caught Gwynplaine's act incognito and arranged a rendezvous, is at the same time sexually attracted to and repelled by the "Laughing Man," but Gwynplaine, who realizes that the duchess' attraction has legitimized his right to love Dea, renounces his title and follows his heart to the new World.
We have seen many movies and stories where we have seen different kind of extraordinary people and the usual people give out a smile, good or bad, like a superhero users a smile to welcome people of the city and show that he comes in peace, but a villain gives out a smile when his doing something wrong or just loves playing bad. But what about a story about man that has a very usual gift that he views it as a curse, that not everybody as thought off before, even I didn't thought of it. His not a bad guy and his not a hero as well, his just a guy trying to make the best out of life but the smile that sticks on his face that courses all this attention really gives Gwynplaine (Main character) a hard and difficult life.
The Man Who Laughs is a silent film that very cleverly get's it's message and it's story across very well and this a silent film with no sound at all and I still felt emotional for the character's in the film.
Conrad Veidt played Gwynplanie and through out the film he had a lot of make-up on his face for the effect of the big smile for his character; it must have been really difficult for him to show any emotion by all that make-up, but he nailed it by showing as much emotion as he can by simply his eyes which people say "The eyes are the windows to the soul", and I felt it all that in his eyes, just like Bane from The Dark Knight Rise who had a mask that covered half of his face and still can be scary and the kind of guy that nobody mess with, all by his eyes and Conrad Veidt also did the same thing.
All the cast did a great job in their roles and Olga Baclanova can play a right nasty bitch but she did it really well. The directing is really good allowing some really impressive and heart felt moments that the cast and the director got right.
My only my problems with the film is that at times it dragged a little bit in some parts, and that's really it for problems.
Overall The Man Who Laughs is a freaking fantastic movie with scenes that really played with my heart strings.
