Friday Night Fright!: Good Friday to you once again my Children of Darkness! And welcome to another Friday Night Fright. Tonights feature is the 1928 silent film The Man Who Laughs staring our featured individual, Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine, the films central character. The story opens in Late 17th Century England. Gwynplaine, is a young boy who has the misfortune of being the son of a nobleman who has offended King James II. The King sentences Gwynplaines father to death and orders the boy to be disfigured by a surgeon who puts a permanent smile on his face. The King states that he wants the boy to to laugh forever at his fool of a father. Now disfigured and homeless, Gwynplaine wanders through a snowstorm and discovers an abandoned baby girl whom he saves. The two are then taken in by a showman who allows Gwynplaine to earn his living showing his disfigured face on stage. As he grows up, he falls in love with the girl he rescued as a baby, but he refuses to marry her because he feels his hideous face makes him unworthy. The traveling show eventually brings them to London. King James is dead, and is replaced by Queen Ann. And here he has the chance to claim his identity as a nobleman and possibly start a new life for himself and The Man Who Laughs is known for its grim depiction of carnival freak-like grin on Gwynplaines face. It was this hideous smile that gave the famous Comic book writer Bob Kane the visual inspiration to create Batmans arch nemesis The Joker. The similarity between them is clear. But inspiration often runs both ways along the same lines. A French remake of The Man Who Laughs, released in 2012, featured a Gwynplaine whos makeup was based directly on Heath Ledgers makeup for the film The Dark Night. So if you have nothing else to do this evening then grab a snack, put a big smile on your face! Click on the link below and join me for The Man Who Laughs.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 23:46:58 +0000
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