Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Gary McGath <garym@mcgath.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom
Subject: Re: MT VOID, 05/23/25 -- Vol. 43, No. 47, Whole Number 2381
Date: Sun, 25 May 2025 16:06:33 -0400
Organization: Mad Scientists' Union
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On 5/25/25 7:56 AM, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:

> THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928): "Comprachicos" is a term coined by
> Victor Hugo in the novel THE MAN WHO LAUGHS to describe people
> known in European folklore to steal and disfigure children for
> commercial gain, but their actual existence in Stuart England is
> questionable at best.  (The setting is straight from Hugo's
> novel.)  I'm not sure where in England one would have a blizzard
> like the one shown at the beginning.
> 
> The film is best known for Conrad Veidt's performance.  Made in
> America five years before Veidt fled to Britain from Nazi Germany
> in 1933, it established him as an international star, and he had a
> very successful career in Britain, and later in the United States,
> where he is remembered primarily for his final role, Major
> Strasser in CASABLANCA.  In THE MAN WHO LAUGHS, his mouth is fixed
> in a permanent grin, meaning he can act only with his eyes, which
> he does magnificently.  So striking was his performance that it
> served as the inspiration for The Joker in BATMAN.  And the love
> story seems to have inspired Charlie Chaplin's CITY LIGHTS.  (This
> is just my opinion, though).

_The Man Who Laughs_ may also have served as an indirect inspiration, 
through a book illustration that was quite different from the movie 
Gwynplaine, for Alfred E. Newman.

For me and many others, Veidt's most memorable role was the sleepwalking 
murderer in _The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari_.
> 
> Oh, an the ending is not Hugo's ending.

You can tell because the protagonists survive.



-- 
Gary McGath    http://www.mcgath.com