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The Last Laugh

The Last Laugh (1924)

January. 05,1925
|
8
| Drama

An aging doorman, after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious Hotel is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbours and society.

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Horst in Translation ([email protected])
1925/01/05

"Der letzte Mann" or "The Last Man" is a German movie from over 90 years ago and it was directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau/Plumpe, one of the country's most known directors from that era, probably you could replace "country" by "world". The lead actor is Emil Jannings, five years before his Oscar win and as so many other times, he plays a character who is considerably older than he was at that time. Aging makeup was already a thing back then. The film is silent (if you hear a soundtrack, it was added later)and in black-and-white. Jannings plays a doorman at a hotel, who is down on his look for most of the film. Or is he really? This is mostly a drama and runs for 90 minutes in the restored version I watched. Still, it's tough for me to take it serious as such with Jannings' over-the-top face expressions basically from start to finish. Then again, this was a common problem back then. People tried to make up for the lack of sound by these comically expressions that just did never leave a good impact for me. Also this film may have needed more intertitles to understand exactly what is going on in all scenes. In my opinion, the material was not (good) enough for 90 minutes here. Not among Murnau's best. Not recommended.

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wes-connors
1925/01/06

This classic silent film about the proud old "Atlantic" hotel doorman who is demoted to bathroom attendant due to his advancing years certainly lives up to its reputation as, "The crowning achievement of the German expressionist movement." Director F.W. Murnau and storyteller Carl Mayer "tell" the story in pure visual style - there are no "title cards" to help with dialogue, and none are necessary. Without language to translate, silent films were universally understood. The piece is superbly photographed by Karl Freund and equally superbly performed by lead actor Emil Jannings.The film was an immediate worldwide critical and financial success, with high placement in the 1925 "New York Times" and "Film Daily" polls, at #2 and #5 respectively. Moreover, the "Motion Picture Magazine" had "Der letzte Mann" (as "The Last Laugh") beat out its "Hollywood" competition as "Best Picture" of 1925, with Mr. Jannings receiving the equivalent "Best Actor" prize. The nightmare of growing old and unneeded is so forcefully conveyed, filmmakers included an inappropriate, theme-busting ending; but, even this arguable lapse in storytelling judgment is brilliantly done.********* Der letzte Mann (12/23/24) F.W. Murnau ~ Emil Jannings, Hans Unterkircher, Maly Delschaft, Georg John

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funkyfry
1925/01/07

From the very first shots of this movie, my friend and I were just in awe of the way Murnau uses the camera to set up his situation. There's an intimacy to it, he brings us close to the characters. Also the way he uses the angles and straight lines of the windows, doors and buildings to frame his shots impresses us immediately with the dehumanizing nature of the city much as it did in his Oscar Winning American film "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans." As if the impressive direction and photography weren't enough to distinguish this as one of the most impressive films I've seen from the early 20s, the whole affair is anchored by a brilliant performance from Emil Jannings. He plays a man who is retired from his position as a hotel doorman and demoted to the washroom, which leads to a sort of nervous breakdown imaginatively filmed and a fetishistic attachment to the uniform of his former office.This isn't a plot heavy film or a drama heavy film, basically it's a character study. It's remarkable for the fact that there are no dialog title cards, and only 2 or 3 informational title cards relating to various events and anchored to specific informational devices interior to the film (e.g. we see the boss' letter telling him of his demotion). The quality of the acting not only from Jannings but from the entire cast (perhaps with the exception of a broadly played gossip woman) we see very natural performances that you often don't in silent films.Of the 3 films I've seen by Murnau, this film impressed me the most. It doesn't have the melodramatic elements that make "Sunrise" a bit more predictable, and it doesn't have the languid pace that slows "Nosferatu" for me. It reminds me in some ways of the films I've seen from the 30s by Jean Renoir -- there's this fantastic way that the camera follow the actors around on the streets, pulling ahead of them momentarily and then allowing the main actor to zip through the frame while it focuses on incidental details. I'm thinking specifically of the scene where Jannings escapes after stealing back the uniform, but there are several scenes along these lines.Essentially I saw this film as a message of hope, interestingly couched with an explanation from the film-makers that "in reality" it would not have ended happily. It's too easy to see this card, one of as I said only 2 or 3 in the entire film and the only one that's not tied to a specific device, as Murnau's way of eating his cake and having it too. Is there a touch of the ending from this movie, with the two former bums riding off together, that comes to mind when you see Wilder's "Some Like It Hot"? Or has this been filtered by way of Mssrs. Lubitsch and Renoir et al? Either way I would describe the movie overall as purely cinematic, miles and miles beyond normal film-making techniques and taste of the early 20s and even arguably of today.

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ackstasis
1925/01/08

F.W. Murnau, along with compatriot Fritz Lang, was and remains one of the most influential German directors of all time, his surviving work – including 'Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922),' 'Faust (1926)' and 'Sunrise (1927)' {the latter of which I have regrettably not seen yet} – continuing to inspire new generations of film-goers and filmmakers more than eighty years later. In 1924, Murnau released what it often held as one of his masterpieces, 'The Last Laugh' {though the director's original title was 'The Last Man'}. However, in no small part due to the interference of Universum Film (UFA) Studio, I must admit that I found this effort to be slightly underwhelming, an unfortunate result for a motion picture that I had felt sure I'd adore. Frequent collaborator Emil Jannings is undoubtedly the star of the film, occupying almost the entire screen time, and playing the character about whom the story revolves. Performing with a passion that transcends the technical boundaries of the silent film, Jannings gives a truly heart-breaking performance that is worth the price of admission alone.'The Last Laugh' was the newest addition to a short-lived movement of film-making known as Kammerspiel, or "chamber-drama," which often concerned itself with the lives of the working-class, and rarely used intertitles to create spoken dialogue or narration. I found myself likening the style to that of the Italin neo-realism movement, if only for showing an average, not-particularly-important man overwhelmed by the cruelty of upper-class society. However, several scenes diverge from this mould, most specifically a dizzying, wondrous dream sequence, and a tacked-on optimistic ending imposed by the commercially-insecure studio. Though it was not the first film to exploit a moving camera, I've rarely seen a silent film making better use of the technique. The camera, with no small thanks to cinematographer Karl Freund {who went on to work on such American films 'All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)' and 'Key Largo (1947)'}, swoops gracefully through Murnau's specially-constructed sets, an effect that is both invigorating and captivating. In one ingenious sequence, the camera even passes through a glass window to achieve a close-up of our protagonist.Hints of German Expressionism {in which Murnau had dabbled in previous years} are also easily noticeable, most notably in the entrancing dream sequence, in which a feverish hand-held camera captures Emil Jannings fancifully holding a hefty trunk high above his head, hurling it an impossible distance into the air and then catching it again with an outstretched arm. Also worth mentioning is a brief scene in which the downcast hotel porter, ashamed at having lost his prestigious job, imagines the tall building collapsing on top of him, representative of the enormous pressure that he feels has been thrust upon his life and respectability. The sneering collection of low-life gossipers, each sporting ridiculous sly grins of mischievous satisfaction, have a tendency to get annoying after a while, and I'd much rather be spending that time with Jannings' warm, kind and quietly proud hotel porter, even if his happy ending {introduced with an openly sardonic intertitle side-note from the director} is more of a crushing disappointment than anything else.

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