The disturbing classic that inspired the Joker’s grin!
From The Hollywood Reporter:
“The specifics of the Joker’s creation, and who first came up with the idea has been hotly contested for decades. But one thing that the Joker’s credited creators, Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson, all agreed upon was that Conrad Veidt’s Gwynplaine and his rictus grin was their inspiration for the Clown Prince of Crime who made his 1940 debut in Batman No. 1.”
“So Bill Finger had a book with a photograph of Conrad Veidt and showed it to me and said, ‘Here’s the Joker!'”
—Batman co-creator Bob Kane
Aside from its ties to the infamous DC Comics villain, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS is also widely regarded as a silent horror masterpiece:
“Disturbing….one of the final treasures of silent German Expressionism.” ★★★★
—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
SUN Oct. 27th at 2:00 PM
MON Oct. 28th at 9:45 PM
Masterfully directed by Paul Leni, The Man Who Laughs marks Leni’s penultimate work. Having grown up in Germany during the era of Expressionism, Leni embraces haunting characters, twisted sets, harsh angles, and deep shadows. Heralded as one of the best American silents emulating German Expressionism, The Man Who Laughs presents Leni at his creative directorial peak. Originally released silent, the film was enough of a hit for Universal in 1928 that the studio released it with a synched musical score using the Movietone sound-on-film process, presented here as a secondary audio track.
Part of Universal Pictures’ ongoing silent restoration initiative, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS honors the studio’s rich film history that has spanned more than a century. The primary source element for this restoration was a 35mm composite fine grain from the Universal Pictures vault, created in 1954 from the nitrate original camera negative. The 4K digital restoration was completed by NBCUniversal StudioPost.
On Sunday, we will be playing the original score, composed for its initial rerelease. On Monday we will be presenting a newly recorded orchestral score by the Berklee School of Music.
Based on the novel by Victor Hugo, the story centers on the extraordinary adventures of Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt), whose wide and mirthless grin inspired DC Comics’ legendary Batman villain, the Joker. Veidt’s character has become well known to most cinephiles. Orphaned as a child, Gwynplaine is punished by the king for his father’s transgressions by having his face carved into a hideous grin. Disfigured and alone, Gwynplaine rescues a blind girl Dea (Mary Philbin), and both end up starring in a sideshow where they fall in love. Because she cannot see, Dea does not know about her lover’s tormented grin.
