Review: 'The Man Who Laughs' and 'The Last Warning' Blu-rays

In 1927, German director and art director Paul Leni moved to Hollywood where he began making pictures for Universal starting with the comedic old dark house prototype The Cat and the Canary. With that film, Leni proved his merits many times over by taking a plot as hoary as Cane and Abel and zapping it to life with some of the most inventive and audacious film tricks ever slapped across the screen. The picture was a hit and signaled the beginning of a fruitful relationship between Universal and the German expatriate.

Sadly, Leni’s unexpected demise in 1929 meant that relationship would not be as fruitful as expected, but he did manage to make three more films for Universal before succumbing to sepsis. The first of those, a Charlie Chan picture called The Chinese Parrot, is lost, but The Man Who Laughs and The Last Warning are very available and now making their Blu-ray debuts thanks to Flicker Alley.

Psychobabble’s 31 Favorite Universal Horrors: #21

Halloween season simply isn’t Halloween season without a regular dose of classic Universal horror (1923-1963). Every day this October, I’ll be giving you a steady IV drip of it by counting down Psychobabble’s 31 Favorite Universal Horrors!

#21. The Man Who Laughs (1928- dir. Paul Leni)

As was the case with The Hunchback of Notre Dame, it’s not really fair to call The Man Who Laughs a horror movie. Many have, though, since Conrad Viedt grotesque smile is so terrifying. However, his Gwynplaine is not a fiend but the victim of a vile child slaver who disfigures his face. Gwynplaine ends up working in a sideshow, and there’s a genuinely romantic sub-plot and Olga Baklanova—who apparently started getting type cast in freak show movies after this—plays a memorably vampy duchess. The melodramatic aspects of The Man Who Laughs hit the emotions harder than any horror themes, but you may still find Viedt’s smile haunting your nightmares for years to come.

Review: 'American Silent Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Feature Films, 1913-1929'

It took five writer/researchers and over seven years of work to create McFarland’s oversized, two volume, 800-plus page American Silent Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Feature Films, 1913-1929. Unwieldy? You bet! Even that title is big. But what an achievement! John T. Soister and Henry Nicolella—with Steve Joyce, Harry H. Long, and Bill Chase—have assembled an unbelievably definitive study of American silent fantastic films. Of the near 300 movies (and an additional 86 with minor supernatural themes), only a tiny handful will be familiar to all but the most devoted silent film buffs. That’s because most of these titles are out of circulation or lost. For the lost ones, our team of crypt keepers has pored over antique documents, original reviews, and cast and crew biographies to recount these tales and the filmmakers behind them vividly. Entries for viewable films are utterly exhaustive, bursting with behind-the-scenes reportage, insightful analysis, vintage synopses, period reviews, and trivial tidbits. Best of all, the writers impart their information with cheeky wit, so this hefty, potentially daunting set is an absolute pleasure to read. By recreating such juicy rarities as the speculative war fantasy The Battle Cry of Peace, which stirred a national hoopla; Black Fear, a wacky proto-Reefer Madness drug rant; the identity-switching insanity of The Haunted Pajamas, featuring a crook with the priceless name Foxy Grandpa; and the apocalypse-comedy Waking up the Town, in which a character gets hilariously shot in the face, the book is also historically essential. One of the finest studies of horror film I’ve ever read.