Movie Makers (Jun-Dec 1928)

PHOTOPLAYFARE Reviews for the Cintelligenzia The Man Who Laughs WE recommend to the persistent photoplayfarer that he go to see Universal's "The Man Who Laughs," because we should like to cite it to him as proof that the photoplay should develop its own literature. There are also other reasons why he should see Paul Leni's handling of the Hugo story. Stage plays based on books and stories have always been hampered in dramatic freedom. The spoken drama's technique — or, better, its essential medium — cannot translate the full flavor of another art. Such translation becomes ever more difficult when the screen essays it, because printed words must be turned into motion and not into vocal sounds. Box-office guardians relinquish, with stubborn tenacity, the idea that anything successful in one art can be transposed into another. These transpositions are often commercially successful, but they are always artistically unhappy. Victor Hugo's novel, "L'Homme Qui Rit," in attitude, plot, characterization and manner is a pretentious shocker, full of the nineteenth century equivalent of present-day screen big scenes. It is essentially the sort of thing thrill-hunting nursemaids want. Literary critics have placed the novels of Hugo in the very modest niche to which they are entitled. That they are in a niche at all is due to the peculiar flavor of Hugo's lit erary manner — not to call it style. His language rescues them from the Nick Carter category. Stripped of that language, the skeleton of "L'Homme Qui Rit" is what the flapper critic would call "goshawful." If fidelity to a novel is a photoplayfare virtue, Messrs. Laemmle and Leni — should one term them the Lugubrious L's — have achieved it. This is literally true in the first half of the film and spiritually true in the second half. The cavortings in the House of Lords are not precisely the things Hugo put in his tale; Mr. Leni branched out into extravagance of his own in this instance. But Hugo would probably have included the comedy of peers if it had occurred to him. His taste ran to the same sort of grandiosity, and, like Mr. Leni's, exhibited the same lack of a sense of proportion and of the ridiculous. "The Man Who Laughs" has the spirit of Hugo to a "t." It is macabre, depressing, horrible, vague, full of pathos that is nearly bathos, doctrinnaire about DEMOCRACY, as bad on the poor aristocrats as "Ivan the Terrible," and altogether the sort of thing that would make any self-respecting reactionary die of auto-intoxication and throw a Communist KING JAMES' ENGLAND There is Convincing Characterization and Authentic Atmosphere in this Scene from The Man Who Laughs. Photograph by Universal. into a frenzy of oratory, if not homicide. The Soviet ought to annex "The Man Who Laughs" as a member of the propaganda trinity — "Ivan" and "The Last of St. Petersburg" being the other two. But this is mostly an enumeration of the reasons why Hugo's art is a pretty poor art, after all. If we state forthright that Universal's predeliction for Hugo is something beyond the ken of the cintelligent we can, having rid our artistic consciences of this irritation, see "The Man Who Laughs" with real pleasure. The action is well-timed, the scenario is workmanlike; the actors are satisfying and several are excellent. For example, Josephine Crowell as Queen Anne gives a great interpretation. She must be added to the collection of American screen royalties, along with Beery and Jannings. Parenthetically, Clare Eames as the Grand Duchess in "The Swan" ought not to be forgotten. Sam de Grasse, in the limited footage allowed him as King James II, gives a very clear and delightful performance. He is as unforgettable as Czar Ivan. The rest are not notable. Conrad Veidt hampered himself with a makeup that was too unrealistic. Any person mutilated from youth would acquire a mobility of facial muscles denied him by the literally "frozen grin" Mr. Veidt affected. If he had plastered his face less and used his (Continued on page 416) 1 \ ' " , '^5 wmmnmm [ 1 [ ?/ ^ \ "^BHU i ' **' £* III ; mmp>. mm III % 1 % i% \ : . . ■ If |* t W-J&-& &¥&■ / ^HH*~~ I -: '■■' ■'--.. ' : *BNP ~ "I 1 393