THE LAST LAUGH (Germany, 1924, F.W. Murnau)

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Almost the perfect film. —Alfred Hitchcock

1924’s THE LAST LAUGH (DER LETZTE MANN), directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (PHANTOM, 1922), is one of the crowning achievements of the German expressionist movement. Emil Jannings stars as an aging hotel doorman whose happiness crumbles when he is relieved of his duties and uniform, which had for years been the foundation of his happiness and pride. Thanks to Jannings’ colossal performance, THE LAST LAUGH becomes more than the plight of a single doorman; it is a mournful dramatization of the frustration and anguish of the working class at large, alongside such other realist German films of the Weimar era (1918—1933) as THE JOYLESS STREET, SLUMS OF BERLIN, CHILDREN OF NO IMPORTANCE, and THE PEOPLE AMONG US. The doorman’s identification with his job, his position in society, his uniform, and his image foreshadows the rise of the Nazi Party. Once he puts on his uniform, the doorman is no longer an individual but a loyal instrument of a larger organization.

Written by Carl Meyer (THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI, 1919) and shot entirely in the UFA Studio, THE LAST LAUGH is a masterwork of cinematic storytelling, utilizing only a single inter-title and relying entirely on Jannings’ facial expressions coupled with extensive (and inventive) use of camera movement. The art direction by Walter Röhrig and Robert Herlth imbued largely realist sets with hints of angularity and distortion, thereby creating an uncanny oppressiveness. The city that they birthed on a barren studio back lot is an achievement in scale, verisimilitude, and forced perspective. It takes on a predatory quality in just the right light, with just the right lens.

A precursor to the dizzying camera techniques used in Marcel L’Herbier’s L’ARGENT (1928), cinematographer Karl Freund’s virtuoso visual aesthetic permeates the entire film. To achieve various effects, Freund placed the camera on a wheelchair, positioned it on top of a bicycle, mounted it on a swing, and strapped it to his chest, at times plumbing cinematic height and depth, attenuating the scale of the buildings, and providing forced perspectives. At other times, the dizzying cinematography externalizes the subjective disorientation of the porter. This technique later became known as “entfesselte Kamera” (unchained camera).

The success of THE LAST LAUGH in Germany caught the attention of William Fox, who brought both Murnau and Jannings to America, where they continued their separate — but equally impressive — film careers. Jannings won an Academy Award for his performance in THE LAST COMMAND (1928, directed by Josef Von Sternberg). For the Fox Film Co., Murnau brought his expressionist skills to the making of SUNRISE (1927), which won the Oscar for “Unique and Artistic Picture” (now a defunct category) at the 1st Academy Awards in 1929.

F. W. Murnau’s 1924 drama THE LAST LAUGH (DER LETZTE MANN) may well be the apogee of silent-film production....The visual clarity of the new release reveals the extraordinary means by which Murnau united the emotional, political, psychological, and moral domains in his quasi-Biblical yet modern and naturalistic fable. —Richard Brody, The New Yorker

In the 1966 film WHERE DID OUR LOVE GO?, directed by experimental filmmaker Warren Sonbert (whose body of work and legacy is represented by GME), the scene of a bathroom attendant brushing the jacket of a young man directly references Murnau’s THE LAST LAUGH. Watch the video below to see a comparison of the scenes in Sonbert’s and Murnau’s films.

Kino Lorber’s 2K digital restoration of THE LAST LAUGH is sourced from celluloid copies of the film located in various archives around the world. This version can be considered the definitive edition of this landmark classic. The original 1924 score by Giuseppe Becce is included on the sound track, as well as a new score by the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra.

THE HITCH-HIKER
(US, 1953)

Director: Ida Lupino

  • 70 minutes
  • 35mm
  • B&W
  • Sound
Distribution Format/s: DSL/Downloadable 1080p .mp4 file on server

Published By: Kino Lorber

Institutional Price: $500

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