Silent Sundays: The Man Who Laughs (1928)

“What a lucky clown- you don’t have to rub off your laugh.”

            A lord named Clancharlie has been arrested by King James II. The royal jester is no good and in on many evil plots. He wakes the King in the night to tell him that Clancharlie has been brought in. The doomed lord is told that his young son has been given over to a group of gypsies called Comprachicos who perform evil surgeries. The poor boy was given a permanent smile. The lord is sent into a device called the Iron Lady and killed. Meanwhile, his son is left behind by the gypsies who are forced to leave England. It is cold and snowy. The boy, Gwynplaine, walks away from the water’s edge. Gwynplaine sees a woman with a baby. Unfortunately the woman has died but her baby is alive. He takes the baby and finds a house. The old man Ursu lets the boy and the baby inside. Ursu sees the baby is blind. Gwynplaine took off his scarf he was hiding his face with and Ursu keeps telling him not to laugh at the blind baby.

            Years later Ursu has taken Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt) and the girl Dea (Mary Philbin) with him as part of a traveling group of performers. Gwynplaine is known as The Man Who Laughs and is the most popular part of the show.

            Even though the King died years prior, the jester is still part of the court. He causes trouble by creating scandals. His newly created scandal concerns the duchess Josiana and a duke. The jester also brings to attention that Josiana’s money is running out and she will only gain money if she were to marry Lord Clancharlie’s heir.

            Josiana goes to the fair to see The Man Who Laughs since the whole of London is talking about him. Everyone finds Gwynplaine funny. They do not know that he a tortured soul. Dea, since she cannot see his face, is the only one who truly loves Gywnplaine. What Josiana sees of The Man Who Laughs she likes and wants him to come to her that night. He is brought to Josiana’s home and as soon as he is brought to her she immediately tries to seduce him. At the same moment Josiana receives a letter stating that Gwynplaine has been found to be the lost heir and that she has to marry him to keep her money.

            After his meeting with Josiana, Gwynplain feels terrible for what had happened. He goes to Dea and for the first time lets her touch his face. Dea at first scowls at what she feels and then tells him “God closed my eyes so I could see only the real Gwynplaine” and he loves her all the more for that.

            The Duke who was supposed to be marrying Josiana comes to the fair to arrest Gwynplaine. He is taken to a prison that is notorious for people going in and never coming out. Ursu tells everyone not to tell Dea that Gwyplaine has been arrested and has the people pretend that Gwynplaine is going on stage. Gwynplaine is fortunately not brought to jail. Since he is a lord he has to be made to look like one and brought to the House of Lords and presented to the Queen. Gwynplaine is immediately laughed at by the other lords. A man had brought Dea to the House of Lords to hear the people laugh at the man she loves. She cannot take their cruelty and collapses and taken away. Gwynplaine saw what happened. He has enough, he does not want to marry Josiana, he does not want to be forced to marry someone not even by the Queen. He runs away out of the House of Lords and to the docks where he has learned that Ursu and the fair are to leave England from after being banished. The lords and other people chase after Gwynplaine for what he has done.

            Gwynplaine manages to get to the boat with the fair and Dea. As soon as Dea sees Gwynplaine she is revived and better.

            I was not crazy about The Man Who Laughs. I found it to be a bit too long. The plot was boring. I feel like with most stories that deal with fairs or circuses and weird looking people are all the same. Lon Chaney’s films, to me, are mostly like that. I suggest watching The Man Who Laughs only if you are a fan of Conrad Veidt or Mary Philbin. 

Silent Sundays: The Student of Prague (1926)

“Do you know what is wrong with him?”

            I must inform you, dear reader, that my mind is a muddled horrible place to be in right. Grad school is kicking my ass as usual and the semester only started two weeks ago. I am beyond crazy tired because I work all damn week and then stay up in north Jersey where I am completing my internship at the Fort Lee Museum (check out their website and the Fort Lee Film Commission’s website. I am way too tired and lazy to hyperlink). I am running on very little sleep and have been eating like utter shit. My body hurts and my brain hurts and I still have three more months to go! And my thesis to write! KILL ME NOW!!!

            Why did I just write that whole mess up informing you of my deteriorating mental health because it is effecting my movie viewing habits. I attempted to watch The Student of Prague but my ADHD kicked in (in all seriousness I suffer from it) and my tiredness kept kicking my ass and I barely paid attention to the film. I shall be writing about what I paid attention to and what I was able to get out of the story. If you happen to like The Student of Prague or have seen it and paid attention to it I sincerely apologize for this hot shit mess coming your way. Wait if you have seen and know what it is about TURN AWAY you should not be reading this in first place… but you can anyway. Prepare for the suck.

            A young student named Balduin (Conrad Veidt) is tired of following his fellow students in drinking and sword dueling (not that kind of sword dueling PERV! HEAD OUT OF THE GUTTER! I think my head is the one in the gutter… see how tired I am?). He wants love in his life. A shady character named Scapinelli comes to Balduin and tells the young man that he can make his wish come true for a small fee. Balduin wants nothing to do with the loan shark and turns the old man away.

            But Scapinelli is not satisfied with the student’s reply and puts events into motion himself. There is a contessa named Margit who lives in the area. Scapinelli sees she is riding horseback through some open field. He makes her horse go wild and uncontrollable and then goes to Balduin to tell him there is trouble with a runaway horse. Balduin saves Margit and for his heroic efforts she invites him to his house… at least I think that is what happens.

            Here is the part of the story that gets a little blurry to me…

            I think Margit’s father gives him money and it is a lot of money. Scapinelli comes into the picture again and wants some money as well the shady shit. Somehow I think Balduin gets to keep the money and he throws a party for all the poor students like him and the rest of the student body in his class. Margit comes by. Balduin is very happy to see her and asks her to dance. Margit, it turns out, has a fiancé, Baron Waldis. Waldis gets pissed that Margit wants to dance with another man. Sometime later Balduin sends a note to Margit that he would like to see her alone before she is married and Waldis comes in between them. They have a wonderful time out in a garden.

            Details, details, details. All those went over my head….

            This girl, who I believe is a beer maid from the beer garden the students went to, is jealous of Balduin’s affection for Margit. She found the letter he had written to Margit (details of how that came to be are gone) and she brings it all the way to Baron Waldis. Waldis now wants to duel with Balduin but he apparently does not know that Balduin is the best sword fighter in all of Prague. If course egos come into play, the men duel, and Balduin is expelled from school because there was no good reason given for the sword fight.

            Details, details, details…. Balduin goes kooky, something happens where he scares the shit out of Margit and that is the end.

            Wow, that had to be the worst write up ever. Sorry dear reader for the terribleness but I did warn you. You must be nucking futs yourself to have read to here.

            The Student of Prague bored me and I am tired (have you gotten the hint that all I wanna do is sleep?) and mixed with my ADHD kept me from focusing the film. I am very deeply sorry for this. If you would like to read better reviews in the future written by someone one who is not off their damn rocker I encourage anyone willing to help me write my thesis and do my homework to do. No takers… figures. Do not blame you. I do not even want to do life right now. Anyway, yeah, The Student of Prague, maybe go watch it if you are into silent films.

 

All Through the Night (1941)

“You're like a bad penny.”

            All Through the Night is a war time propaganda piece from the 1940s. It has the usual spies, a pretty foreign girl that an American has to try to save and he also has to save America from the Nazis. All Through the Night has a perfect mix of comedy and drama and it is one of my favorite Humphrey Bogart films I have seen so far.

            Gloves Donahue (Bogart) is a boxing promoter. He gets whatever he wants when he wants it. Every day Gloves goes to a restaurant to get a slice of cheesecake that is delivered there from a bakery in his old neighborhood. He will only eat that kind of cheesecake and nothing else and walks out the server brings him the wrong slice.

            The baker Mr. Miller is mixed up with a man named Pepi (Peter Lorre). Pepi has Mr. Miller talk to someone. Mr. Miller refuses to go speak to the person he does not want to be mixed up with Pepi’s business anymore. Pepi pushes Mr. Miller down the stairs and holds a gun to him.

            Gloves gets a call from his mother about something urgent. When he gets to the bakery she her son that Mr. Miller has gone missing no one knows where he could be. Gloves looks in the basement. He finds Mr. Miller’s body in a freezer. A young woman walks into the bakery as Gloves is telling his mother what he found in the basement. The young woman, Leda Hamilton, is looking for Mr. Miller. The police lieutenant comes, he speaks to Gloves, and when they turn to speak to the woman she is gone.

            Mrs. Donahue tracks Leda down to a nightclub. Leda is a singer there. Gloves goes down to the nightclub and finds that his mother is making a big fuss and accusing Leda of murdering Mr. Miller. Gloves sends his mother home and stays to speak to Leda. They talk for a few minutes until Pepi comes by. Leda leaves Gloves and goes to her dressing room. When she closes the door a gunshot is heard. Gloves did not hear the shot but he goes back to speak to Leda again. When he walks in he sees the proprietor Joe lying on the floor with a bullet wound in the stomach. Joe unfortunately dies before he can tell Gloves who shot him. Gloves accidentally leaves one of his leather gloves near the body. He is now wanted by the police as the murderer.

            Gloves manages to find where Leda lives. He sneaks into the building with one of his guys Sunshine. The place is not an apartment it is a warehouse full of toys. Sunshine and Gloves split up to look around. They hear a freight elevator comes down. Another man is in the warehouse. Gloves has a shoot out with the guy and then they get into a fist fight. Gloves manages to knock the guy out. When he goes to look for Sunshine the guy is nowhere to be found. He figures there is a third floor and that is where Sunshine could be. The elevator goes up but there is no third floor. He is convinced the building connects with another building on the other side. He tracks down the building to an auction house. Gloves wants to get to the backroom there. Pepi is in the back. He tells a woman simply known as Madame (Judith Anderson) who Gloves is then she goes an tells the auctioneer Ebbing (Conrad Veidt). He manages to get into the backroom. He asks if they have old toys anywhere. Madame gives Ebbing surprised look. There is a sound coming from behind Ebbing. Gloves asks what it is and Ebbing responds that the noise is the ventilating system. All the sudden Leda comes out from behind a door. As Gloves goes to move towards Leda he is knocked out. When Gloves comes to he finds he has been put into a storage room. He also sees that Sunshine is there with him too. Leda comes in and gets the two men out. Leda goes back to Ebbing and Madame. Madame does not trust Leda at all.

            Gloves and Sunshine check out the building. There is a painting of Hitler on the wall and maps of new York City and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. They find out that Ebbing and Madame are Nazis. In a notebook is written down names and information. One of the names is belongs to Leda’s father and he is being held in the Dachau prison camp.

            Leda and Gloves get away from the auction house. She tells him about her father and why she was working with Ebbing and Madame. She was working for them to get her father out of the camp. Gloves gets into a fight with a crony. During the fight the piece of paper with Leda’s father’s name falls out. Leda picks up the paper and finds that her father has died.

            Ebbing eventually finds Gloves and Leda in a hotel. Gloves had called the police to have Ebbing arrested but they do not believe his story since he is wanted for murder. Gloves has them all go to the auction house to look around. Everything he had seen with Sunshine is gone. Gloves manages to get away so that he can clear his name. He gets all his gangster friends together to find Ebbing and to stop whatever is going on. Gloves and Sunshine track Ebbing down to a meeting. They beat up two Germans and take their IDs. They find out the Germans are all over America and plan to attack and weaken the country starting with the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

            Gloves follows Ebbing to the Navy Yard and stops Ebbing from blowing up a destroyer.

            Humphrey Bogart was hilarious in this film. He had great comedic timing. I was laughing when he was in the meeting he was just making stuff up off the top of his head to make it like he knew what he was talking about. Bogart did have range he could play tough and mean or he could be sarcastic and funny.

            I enjoyed All through the Night. The story was really good but it got out of hand at some points. It was silly that a group of gangsters stopped the Nazis from taking over New York City (maybe what he said in Casablanca about invading some sections of New York City was true). All Through the Night was a good propaganda film it did not get out of hand screaming American values.