Stellead Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

ShangLuda Admirable film.

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Lee Eisenberg More than anything, F.W. Murnau's movie "Der letzte Mann" ("The Last Laugh" in English) seems to be a metaphor for inter-war Germany. Much like how the doorman (Emil Jannings) gets demoted to washroom attendant, Germany went through something similar in the wake of WWI: the reparations demanded by the Allied Powers destroyed the country economically, which unfortunately led to Hitler's rise to power. In fact, the cynical end of the movie -- in which the doorman inherits a bunch of money -- seems to foretell the worst kind of "salvation" that Germany could have (which it eventually did). To be certain, Jannings gladly starred in Nazi propaganda movies, while Georg John (who plays the night watchman here), got sent to the Łódź Ghetto, where he died in 1941.But even ignoring that, this exercise in expressionism is a masterpiece beyond description. The lack of inter-titles is especially eye-opening, forcing all concentration on the action. Murnau followed up "Nosferatu" with the same sorts of surreal imagery, going one step further this time. He later had a great achievement with "Faust - Eine Deutsche Volkssage". All of these are definitely worth seeing.

Steffi_P In the 1920s silent cinema was becoming ever more elaborate and literary. While visual means of storytelling were getting ever more sophisticated, the frequency and length of title cards was also on the up, often adding words where they weren't strictly necessary. This 1924 effort to create a picture entirely without intertitles (bar one at the beginning and one at the end) ought to be a real breath of fresh air, no? Well, director F.W. Murnau was certainly a talented enough fellow to pull off such a thing, in theory at least.Of course, your story can't be too complex – not everything can be explained visually. The Last Man is a simple tale of man enjoys job, man loses job, man mopes about a bit, man inherit fortune and has last laugh. Murnau himself later pointed out that the story is absurd because a washroom attendant (which said man subsequently becomes) would make more money than a doorman. This may be true, but at least the narrative goes to lengths to show the drop in status that the hero suffers. Much is made of the military-style uniform that doormen wear, and the being made redundant is made to look like the degradation of an army officer. The ironic reversal of fortune in the final reel seems both tacked on and dragged out too long. It would be fairly neat if it was just shown to happen, but instead the point is laboured into banality.But even with such a trite storyline, a silent picture without intertitles isn't necessarily easy. So what does Murnau do? He cheats. When Emil Jannings gets the news about his job, he is told in a letter which we see in close-up, which really amounts to the same thing as a title card of someone saying it. This shouldn't have been much of a distraction, but rather than just showing the letter we get words blurring back and forth across the screen, hammering the point home. And throughout the picture Murnau is continually showing off with technique, employing every cheap trick-shot the mechanics of the day allowed, as if that makes up for the lack of text. The bit where the old man dreams of throwing a trunk up and catching it might actually be quite funny, if it wasn't shot through some blurry filter with a wobbly camera. It's a pity because Murnau could be such a wonderful image-maker when he didn't get too absorbed in technical showmanship.Perhaps the worthy talents of lead actor Emil Jannings can help to salvage something of value. Unfortunately this giant of German cinema has one of his hammy turns in The Last Man, and his acting is just as exaggerated as Murnau's formal excess. His caricatured facial expressions and waddling walk are great for comedy, but when he gives that stupid doleful expression when his niece finds him working in the toilets it makes the scene unintentionally funny. Still, it's not all bad. For this performance Jannings has one of those elaborate moustache/sideburn combos which makes his mouth almost invisible, and this encourages him to emote more through his eyes and body language. There's a very touching moment where he sits by the basins drinking his soup.I suppose the fact that Murnau's other pictures are just as wordy as was the norm at that time ought to serve as a warning that he was not necessarily the best man to conduct such an experiment. There were around this time a number of directors who did make good pictures with very sparse intertitles, including Murnau's studio-mates Fritz Lang and G.W. Pabst, or King Vidor in Hollywood. None of these attempted a picture without subtitles, instead recognising them as a necessary burden, using them when needed but keeping them to a minimum. And their late silent pictures are far more satisfying than this corny and overwrought bit of self-indulgence.

chaos-rampant Although the Golden Twenties of German cinema, a golden age corresponding approximately to the era from the making of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in 1919 to Hitler's absorption of the German film industry for the purposes of the Nazi regime, has come to be widely associated in public consciousness with the grotesque, the mystical and the fantastic of German Expressionism, indeed with such iconic figures to spearhead it as Nosferatu, the Somnabulist, Dr. Caligari, Mephisto and the Golem, all of them having their roots in the folklore or a fantastic reimagined past, there was also a more realistic, if no less tragic, depiction of a middle-class present with a focus on a psychological, as opposed to metaphysical, aspect.By 1924 the acceptance of the Dawes Plan by Germany had lulled the German Republic into a sense of economic stability that was to last until the stock market crash in 1929. It was that same stability that most hurt the German film industry, as the Dawes Plan imposed the reduction of all exports, leaving many independent production companies without foreign markets for their product. In the years to come Hollywood would seize this unique financial opportunity to break down its only European rival, but before major box-office flops like Fritz Lang's epic rendition of Die Nibelungen (1924) and Metropolis (1927) and FW Murnau's Faust (1926) would bring UFA to its proverbial knees in debt to German banks, little films like The Last Laugh (1924) and Varieté (1925) were the toast of the town in both sides of the Atlantic.Emil Jannings plays an aging hotel porter who takes great pride and pleasure in his job and especially the lavish uniform that comes with it. In the miserable middle-class neighborhood he lives, being able to wake up in the morning and go to work dressed like in such a prestigious uniform is like being a general. That is until a younger man is hired in his place and he's demoted to the, undignified in his mind, job of lavatory attendant. Not bearing to lose face back home with gossiping neighbors and relatives, the old porter steals back his uniform and returns home as if nothing happened, the uniform a symbol not only of his social status but also of purpose in life.What is most striking about The Last Laugh is the way Murnau externalizes the psychological in a grand, theatric way that could only work on stage and in silent cinema. Watch for example the look of pure anguish and horror in Janning's face when he's asked to turn in his uniform, stripping it off like he's being skinned alive. Recoiling without it into a state of defeat and abandonment like a man stripped of his own identity, with nothing to live for.Obsessed with artistic control and exercising complete authority over the minutest details of lighting and décor, German directors pushed for an increasingly studio-bound cinema to the point that UFA in the years between 1919 and 1927 became the best equipped movie studio in the western world. The Last Laugh is no exception. The facades of apartment blocks in the background with light slanting over them, the low-class neighborhood, the busy street in front of the hotel, all of them replicated in great detail within studio limits. It's within this geography that Murnau transposes Jannings' internal world. As is proper for the inward journey of the self the protagonist faces, the aging porter starts at the busy front of the hotel only to find himself exiled in the dark bowels of the basement where he remains hidden, that is until the film's tacked-on happy ending.The only false note in an otherwise perfect film is the happy ending Murnau and scriptwriter Carl Mayer (of Caligari fame) were forced to devise by UFA executives anxious for the box office success of their movie. It's not that it doesn't work because such a tragic tale precludes a happy ending, after all one of the most memorable endings in all cinema is that of Capra's It's a Wonderful Life and it doesn't get any more saccharine than that, but because it happens in such a tacked-on deus-ex-machina fashion that it feels like a complete cop-out. It's lame now and it was lame then and Murnau no doubt understood that as he flashes a title card (the only title card in the film) more or less apologizing that "that's how the movie would've ended if I didn't have a boss to keep happy so here's a they-lived-happily-ever-after epilogue, take it with a pinch of salt or ignore it altogether". It's noteworthy however that it's not pure schmaltzy tripe. It feels as though Murnau is taking a perverse, vulgar pleasure in delivering what was asked of him.Exceptionally photographed, with a modern feel to Murnau's camera-work that places it well ahead of its time compared to other silents, a great example of purely visual storytelling without the cumbersome crutches of the title cards, The Last Laugh stands not only as a triumph of Weimar cinema but as masterpiece almost 100 years later.

Michael_Elliott Last Laugh, The (1924) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Emil Jennings plays a proud and honored doorman at a lavished hotel but soon his world is turned upside down into humiliation when he is demoted, because of his age, to working in the bathroom shining shoes. There's no doubt this is one of the most beautiful looking films ever made but it might also be one of the most depressing ever made. There were countless times during the film that I wanted to turn it off simply because it was too depressing watching this older man lose everything he loved. The beauty of the film comes from cinematographer Karl Fruend who once again shows why he was the master in his field. The incredibly haunting shots really adds to the depression felt by the lead character and the use of superimposed images just add a haunting figure to the entire film. Jennings performance has to rank as one of the greatest from any era as he really nails the proud side of this character as well as the torture and humiliation. The scene where his beloved jacket is ripped off of him is incredibly sad and the way the actor plays trying to steal it back is just as sad. The title pretty much gives away the twist at the end of the film but it's also worth noting that Murnau had this ending forced on him by the studio. One could certainly debate that it wasn't needed and it ruined the film but after so much depression I didn't mind it too much. It makes for some cute scenes and moments but I guess each viewer will debate on if it was needed. Murnau was already a genius at this point in his career and he'd go onto making even better films, which just shows how incredible he was. The most noted thing about this film is that Murnau doesn't use intertitles to tell the story. A few notes are shown but outside of that this is as silent as a silent film can get and to me it just proves that a master filmmaker and a great actor don't need words to get emotions across.