L'uomo che ride

As I'm writing this TCM America will be showing 1966's The Man Who Laughs, a French/Italian co-production. I saw this movie when I was boy on the tv on a Saturday afternoon. I knew nothing about the classic novel by Victor Hugo nor the classic Silent movie that starred Conrad Veidt. I was fascinated by this story of a deformed young male acrobat. He wears a leather mask over his lower face to hide the permanent "grin" that was carved into his face as a small boy. The young man is also in love with a blind woman. After a performance with a small circus this young man reveals his deformity setting in motion tragic events. Our "hero" is 'discovered' & seduced by a noblewoman; he is enticed into coming a head henchman of the noblewoman's brother. The blind woman is also 'discovered' by a young nobleman who also falls in love with her. This nobleman is the enemy of the family who our "hero" now serves. You can guess what's going to happen; mostly.

Anyway as a kid I found this fascinating. Going by the previous reviews & what I remember I'm going to say that the people behind this production were inspired by the classic silent film to do their own take on the basic premise. And it seems to me that the director, writer & who else also inspired by the '50's movie version of Scaramouche, which also has a deformed theatre performer. This is Not a Remake.

The setting is moved from 18th c. England to Renaissance Italy where politics were literally cut-throat. And this is mostly like a low to moderate production using costumes, props from other productions and the very plentiful ancient & scenic Italian buildings & landscape giving an authentic atmosphere. This is not a great nor classic movie; there are a few things done, story-wise, that would make an adult viewer scratch their head. This is a B-grade costume drama/thriller that should be appreciated on it's own; associating this movie to better works of literature and cinema with the same title would just ruin the experience. I gave it 5 stars just to be fair.

I shall not pretend as if I have seen the 1928 version of this movie (not yet anyway but I'm certainly planning to) with Conrad Veidt in the main lead, or the original from 1921, of which this movie is a remake but it's pretty safe to assume that those movies are better than this version.

The movie is absolutely horribly made. The concept and setting are quite good and promising but it is all wasted with the weak storytelling of it all. The story itself, based on the book by Victor Hugo, is quite fascination, almost Shakesperean like. It has some great elements in it but it is all wasted in this movie. All of the potential is ruined but the weak acting, dreadful camera-work (seriously, don't they know what a focus-puller is?) and horrible editing. The story is also told messy and at times you don't even know who exactly are supposed to be the good guys and the bad guys of the movie. It makes the movie very unpleasant and uneasy to watch at times.

There are still some good moments in the movie, especially in the middle but overall the movie is a dragging, messy, confusing one that isn't really worth watching. The movie also becomes unnecessary ridicules at times, especially toward the ending of the movie. It truly becomes laughable bad at times and loses all of it's credibility because of those many moments, that are present in the movie.

Great story, very bad storytelling and execution of it all.

3/10

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The Man Who Laughs (1966)

** (out of 4)

This remake of the 1928 silent film isn't anywhere near a good movie but I think fans of that original might find themselves entertained by this thing simply by seeing the changes made in the story. This time the story takes place during the Renaissance in Italy as the deformed Angelo (Jean Sorel) strikes revenge when he thinks the woman that he loves has been killed. That's pretty much all the "story" you need to know as it is rather light and often times seems to be made up as the thing moves along. The original version is a true classic but this remake isn't a horrible movie but instead just an interesting misfire. I think this could have made for an interesting picture as the Victor Hugo story itself is so strong that it could support changing in for various times in history. The problem is that director Sergio Corbucci doesn't have the budget or the screenplay to pull it off. The biggest problem is that it seems every scene is just going for a quick thrill and there's never any real time to build up a story or the characters. Just take a look at a scene where Angelo gets to roll around in the hay with a beautiful woman. The entire scene just feels rushed and there for no real reason other than to give 1966 eyes a sex scene. There are actually some good moments to be found including the action scenes, which I thought were directed quite nicely and they contained a good amount of energy. Another plus was the cinematography, which I found quite good and the color certainly got to show off the red hair of Sorel. Speaking of Sorel, he's fairly good in the part considering he isn't given much of a story to work with. The supporting cast doesn't do much to help either. The special effects of the deformed mouth isn't nearly as impressive. There were quite a few changes from the original make up that simply don't work but this is probably due to the limited budget more than anything else. In the end, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS isn't as bad as its reputation but it's mildly interesting to see how it was changed in order to fit Italy in 1966.

To my own personal regret, I haven't yet seen the 1928 classic on which this French/Italian version is based. The basic premise is truly intriguing and you can derive from this film that the original has got to be a fantastic film. The pivot character is a young man called Angelo (Jean Sorel from Lucio Fulci's "Lizard in a Woman's Skin") who got kidnapped as a boy by gypsies in order to turn him into an acrobat and sell him to a circus. His face was horribly mutilated on purpose (he appears to have a constant grin) to increase his "value" as a circus-freak even more. The story is set in 16th century Spain (or is it Italy?) and Angelo is torn between civil wars and an unanswered love. I hope to see the original soon, because I understand that this setting is different and a lot more confusing. This version is overlong and quickly becomes boring. Moreover, the screenplay makes a ridiculous twist near the end, when we're supposed to believe that surgeons in the 16th century were flawlessly capable of performing complex plastic surgery. The make-up effects are admirable, the body count is enormous and Sorel's acting is well above average. Even though a remake, "The Man Who Laughs" is a movie with great potential and it's a shame the execution is so darn poorly.

This is a new version of famous German classic of 1928 starring Conrad Veidt. The theme is basically the same: a boy, kidnapped by gypsies, has his face deformed to be always smiling and thus become a circus attraction. Sold to company of traveling artists, he knows a blind girl, for who falls in love.

But a great difference exists between both movies: Of England of the king James II, the history was transferred to Italy of the 16º century, in the times of Caesar and Lucretia Borgia. Angelo - the man that always laughs - is a monster, horrendous, much uglier than the character that Veidt interprets in the original film and he will become a killer to service of Borgia.

Besides, the history is very exaggerating and a scene is difficult to believe: the plastic surgery that transforms Angelo in a perfect copy of the Duke is absurd even in the patterns of the year 2000, imagine in the 16º century!

A movie without interest, with a good proposal but very badly developed.