Review of The Last Laugh

"Der letzte Mann" or "The Last Man" is a German movie from over 90 years ago and it was directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau/Plumpe, one of the country's most known directors from that era, probably you could replace "country" by "world". The lead actor is Emil Jannings, five years before his Oscar win and as so many other times, he plays a character who is considerably older than he was at that time. Aging makeup was already a thing back then. The film is silent (if you hear a soundtrack, it was added later)and in black-and-white. Jannings plays a doorman at a hotel, who is down on his look for most of the film. Or is he really? This is mostly a drama and runs for 90 minutes in the restored version I watched. Still, it's tough for me to take it serious as such with Jannings' over-the-top face expressions basically from start to finish. Then again, this was a common problem back then. People tried to make up for the lack of sound by these comically expressions that just did never leave a good impact for me. Also this film may have needed more intertitles to understand exactly what is going on in all scenes. In my opinion, the material was not (good) enough for 90 minutes here. Not among Murnau's best. Not recommended.