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Media Necromancy: The Man Who Laughs Book to Film

Hello Haunted Hearts Society Members

Welcome back to another installment of the strange, obscure, and bygone.

This selection isn’t quite as obscure as the some of the other films I’ve covered in the past, as the source material is the work of Victor Hugo, who of course is most famous for Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, or as the novel is called, Notre-Dame de Paris. But this particular novel, The Man Who Laughs, published in 1869, despite not being as famous as some of his other work, was made into a movie by Universal Studios in 1928. And believe it or not this was not the first film version. It wasn’t even the second. In fact the Universal rendition of The Man Who Laughs is the third known version.

The first was a 1909 French film which unfortunately is lost, and it’s really too bad considering this is a French novel, albeit about England, but we don’t have a French film take on the story from this era.

The next and the first feature length version is a low-budget Austrian film from 1921 called Das Grinsende Gesicht. This version has been uploaded onto YouTube and can be watched, but interestingly the intertitles were in Dutch.

And then of course there is the 1928 Universal film which was directed by Paul Leni, a German Expressionist filmmaker and starred Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine, who played Cesare in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. The influence of German expressionism here is probably a large part of why this film is as good as it is. This film is also in the public domain and available on YouTube.

Interestingly the posters from each film depict the same scene, being Gwynplaine with Duchess Josiana.

Universal is a big and successful film studio, and even with the 7 year gap between the films, the quality between the two film examples are not comparable. The Universal The Man Who Laughs is head and shoulders above Das Grinsende Gesicht in just about every way, so this will focus on the different narrative approaches they took to the same story.

Naturally the simple thing to do would be to just discuss one of these films, but interestingly if you put both of them together you’ll be closer to what Hugo wrote than just talking about one or the other.

Starting right off, both movies are going to just tell us who Gwynplaine is, why he’s known as the “Laughing Man”, and how his face came to be in the state it is. Hugo won’t reveal this until quite deep into the book, instead just starts with a little hint of a clue in the first part, which are a couple chapters describing Ursus and Homo, who are a man and a wolf, respectively. Ursus has notes about the current lords and what he considers necessary to know about them. It’s not particularly necessary for us to know every single member of the House of Lords to understand the story, but for our purposes the important bit is the very last entry:

“In the margin, opposite the last name (that of Linnæus, Lord Clancharlie), there was a note in the handwriting of Ursus: Rebel; in exile; houses, lands, and chattels sequestrated. It is well.”

Again this is going to be important later, but for now let’s start with the older of the two films. What I appreciate about this version is that it’s going to keep the political motivations for most of the story, but we do get the characters shuffled around a bit.

Lord Clancharlie is in exile, and upon his death leaves his young son to the care of his sister, Lady Dirry-Moir. Because Lady Dirry-Moir wants her son David to inherit both estates, she sells the boy to the comprachicos – people who bought children with the intention of deforming them, so they can be used to work in carnivals, freaks shows, or as Hugo describes in the chapters dedicated to the history of these people, for the whims and fancies of the ruling class. We’ll learn in the novel much later on that Lord David Dirry-Moir is a cousin to Gwynplaine.

“The Comprachicos traded in children. They bought and sold them. They did not steal them. The kidnapping of children is another branch of industry. And what did they make of these children?

Monsters.

Why monsters?

To laugh at.

The populace must need to laugh, and kings too. The mountebank is wanted in the streets, the jester at the Louvre. The one is called a Clown, the other a Fool.

The efforts of man to procure himself pleasure are at times worthy of the attention of the philosopher.

What are we sketching in these few preliminary pages? A chapter in the most terrible of books; a book which might be entitled—The farming of the unhappy by the happy.”

The emphasis that the children were bought, not stolen, and that Hugo goes on to condemn kings, sultans and even the Pope of trading in these manufactured “monsters” is telling. He also goes on to say that this was eventually outlawed following the end of King James II’s rule, which is the eventual reason Gwynplaine is abandoned, but this is still a matter of child trafficking, and the use of so-called deformities and disabilities continued to be a source of “entertainment” in circus freak shows, well after this novel was written. Even if the people being displayed weren’t artificially made into monsters, or were even simply people of a different race from the English circus-goer, the result of a “human oddity” is the same. It’s also known that Queen Victoria viewed freak shows.

The Universal film is again going to just tell us straight off how Gwynplaine came to be the laughing man, but with a more dramatic scene with the villain himself, King James II, and this jester character Barkilphedro. The king is woken from his sleep surrounded by either Saints, past Kings or other variety of clearly religious men, with a zoomed in shot on the cross one is holding, who bear witness to his state-sanctioned evil and taken to confront Lord Clancharlie directly. Barkilphedro is just as scheming here as in the novel, but he again doesn’t appear in the book until much later when he tries to get himself in positions of power with Queen Anne.

You can already see the level of drama in this version is vastly increased, there’s a lot of tension as the cruelty of King James II is highlighted, and poor Lord Clancharlie is sent to his end in an iron maiden, which was apparently a 19th century invention for shock value even though this story at this point is set in the 1690s. History points to people in the 19th century just making up stuff about the middle ages to make them seem worse, and that our idea of people in that time period being perpetually dirty and violent is largely because Victorians really hated them for some reason, which I did see evidence of in a 19th century book I read about witchcraft entitled Magic in the Middle Ages.

In the novel Lord Clancharlie’s young son was sold after his death in exile, but it was still at the order of the King that the son was sold to the Comprachicos. We learn this towards the middle of the novel, when a letter is read to Gwynplaine penned by the very Comprachicos who had abandoned him on the snowy shores of England.

"This present day, the twenty-ninth of January, one thousand six hundred and ninetieth year of our Lord.

Has been wickedly deserted on the desert coast of Portland, with the intention of allowing him to perish of hunger, of cold, and of solitude, a child ten years old.

That child was sold at the age of two years, by order of his most gracious Majesty, King James the Second.

That child is Lord Fermain Clancharlie, the only legitimate son of Lord Linnæus Clancharlie, Baron Clancharlie and Hunkerville, Marquis of Corleone in Sicily, a peer of England, and of Ann Bradshaw, his wife, both deceased. That child is the inheritor of the estates and titles of his father. For this reason he was sold, mutilated, disfigured, and put out of the way by desire of his most gracious Majesty.

That child was brought up, and trained to be a mountebank at markets and fairs.

He was sold at the age of two, after the death of the peer, his father, and ten pounds sterling were given to the king as his purchase-money, as well as for divers concessions, tolerations, and immunities.

Lord Fermain Clancharlie, at the age of two years, was bought by me, the undersigned, who write these lines, and mutilated and disfigured by a Fleming of Flanders, called Hardquanonne, who alone is acquainted with the secrets and modes of treatment of Doctor Conquest.

The child was destined by us to be a laughing mask (masca ridens).

With this intention Hardquanonne performed on him the operation, Bucca fissa usque ad aures, which stamps an everlasting laugh upon the face.

The child, by means known only to Hardquanonne, was put to sleep and made insensible during its performance, knowing nothing of the operation which he underwent.

He does not know that he is Lord Clancharlie.

He answers to the name of Gwynplaine.”

As M. Hugo is giving us the history of all this child trafficking and the practice finally being outlawed in England, the Comprachicos pack up ship, leave behind their unhappy product, and cast off to sea.

At least this is also what happens in the Universal version, though the movie gives James credit for ending this terrible practice. In Hugo’s story it was William and Mary, the monarchs who followed King James II. Additionally, their rendition of the boat has significantly more people, including the surgeon Hardquanonne. Naturally when you’re making a film you don’t have all day to spend on one scene, but when you’re Victor Hugo writing a book you can take as many pages are you want, and most of the first volume of the novel consisted of the last voyage of this ship.

It was indeed the last voyage as it goes into a very exciting account of how they sail into a snowstorm at sea, which is infinitely worse than a regular storm. The skipper gets washed overboard at one point, and eventually as the remaining passengers realize they are sinking, they write the confession above, seal it into a bottle and hope that it washes to shore as they just disappear into the depths. It was amusing as it felt like ages reading about this ship in the storm before it got back to what was going on with the kid, and in the movie the whole scene is over in a couple minutes. It’s also worth noting that by the time the message is found, the throne has changed hands twice and Queen Anne is not aware of this whole transaction.

If Hardequanonne wasn’t supposed to go down with the ship, then where is he supposed to be? Well Das Grinsende Gesicht has this scene the same as in the novel, in which he’s arrested and sent to a prison in Chatham.

Unfortunately that means we also don’t get the scene with the gibbet, which can also be described as “M. Hugo’s commentary on the use of torture and intimidation in the English judicial system”, which will also come up again later, but is also one of the most gothic scenes in the novel. This is portrayed in the Universal film, even if it doesn’t quite have the same effect without the political statement, but it is quite a striking and terrifying scene nonetheless. It’s also something that only lasts a few seconds, while in the book it’s an entire chapter entitled “STRUGGLE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH”.

“The gibbet was old, worm-eaten, although strong, and had been in use many years.

It was an immemorial custom in England to tar smugglers. They were hanged on the seaboard, coated over with pitch and left swinging. Examples must be made in public, and tarred examples last longest. The tar was mercy: by renewing it they were spared making too many fresh examples. They placed gibbets from point to point along the coast, as nowadays they do beacons. The hanged man did duty as a lantern. After his fashion, he guided his comrades, the smugglers. The smugglers from far out at sea perceived the gibbets. There is one, first warning; another, second warning. It did not stop smuggling; but public order is made up of such things. The fashion lasted in England up to the beginning of this century. In 1822 three men were still to be seen hanging in front of Dover Castle. But, for that matter, the preserving process was employed not only with smugglers. England turned robbers, incendiaries, and murderers to the same account. Jack Painter, who set fire to the government storehouses at Portsmouth, was hanged and tarred in 1776. L'Abbé Coyer, who describes him as Jean le Peintre, saw him again in 1777. Jack Painter was hanging above the ruin he had made, and was re-tarred from time to time. His corpse lasted—I had almost said lived—nearly fourteen years. It was still doing good service in 1788; in 1790, however, they were obliged to replace it by another. The Egyptians used to value the mummy of the king; a plebeian mummy can also, it appears, be of service.

The wind, having great power on the hill, had swept it of all its snow. Herbage reappeared on it, interspersed here and there with a few thistles; the hill was covered by that close short grass which grows by the sea, and causes the tops of cliffs to resemble green cloth. Under the gibbet, on the very spot over which hung the feet of the executed criminal, was a long and thick tuft, uncommon on such poor soil. Corpses, crumbling there for centuries past, accounted for the beauty of the grass. Earth feeds on man.

The corpse at the end of the chain, pushed by the invisible gust, took an oblique attitude; rose to the left, then fell back, reascended to the right, and fell and rose with slow and mournful precision. A weird game of see-saw. It seemed as though one saw in the darkness the pendulum of the clock of Eternity.”

Every version is going to have Gwynplaine finding a baby in her dead mother’s arms, and then going on to be taken in by Ursus. Neither film shows how he went from door to door in the town and no one was either awake or would let them in, and the hero is the most unlikely character. Ursus, the philosopher, something of a travelling jack-of-all-trades, who describes himself as a misanthrope. His actions don’t align with the cruelness of his words but he really becomes a caring father to the children. He names the baby Dea, and continues to care for her after discovering she is blind.

That gets us about 15 minutes into the movies, and all those 15 minutes were almost an entire novel, as this book was divided into 2 volumes. If you’re familiar with Les Mis and that fact it’s called the “Brick”, it should not at all be a surprise at how little action there was in so many words, but rather long descriptions and all sorts of background information and commentary. All of it is relevant to the story, and you’re not going to get any of that watching movies, especially considering so far we’ve only had a little bit of the politics involved.

There is one more thing from the first volume that is covered in both films, and that is going to be the Duchess Josiana.

Both films portray her as a bored aristocrat, someone who’s a bit rebellious and looking for something more freeing than the stiff and ordered life of royalty. The Universal film does keep the sexualized portrayal of Josiana’s character, by inserting a bath scene where Barkilphedro enters. To be sure, neither of these situations are ones she asked these men to be looking at her in, but she doesn’t really shy away either. She’s a pretty interesting character who can also be considered a bad person for other more compelling reasons. She asks Barkilphedro for the latest scandals, which gets us closer to her intended personality. In the novel, she’s engaged to Lord David, but doesn’t apparently wish to actually marry him. She seems to find pleasure in doing things she’s not supposed to, and is entertained by things that ought to be shocking or horrific. She doesn’t think much of a boxing match that ends in one of the participants seriously and permanently injured, and is directed to the Laughing Man’s show, because of the promise of a new and grotesque figure, that being Gwynplaine’s face.

The portrait of Lord David she has in the bath scene is pretty goofy, but she clearly doesn’t take him seriously so neither should we.

Following there is a scene with the Queen, Lord David looks exactly like the goofy portrait, and this part looks like it should be out of a comedy.

Barkilphedro is still scheming, but Josiana is off at the fair and honestly living her best life, blending in with the peasantry and snubbing the queen, as you do.

Her later presence at Gwynplaine and Dea’s performance is very intentional, and this is done in all three versions. Everyone knows who she is, she gets her own special seat and she’s almost as much as a spectacle as the show. The reason she’s there isn’t by chance as she sought out the Laughing Man with the promise that his face will be the grotesque horror she’s looking for after seeing the boxing match. This leads to a weird sort of infatuation between the two of them, on Gwynplaine’s part because she’s the grandest most woman he’s ever seen, and for her because she’s something of a thrill-seeker, or as she describes in the book:

"I love you, not only because you are deformed, but because you are low. I love monsters, and I love mountebanks. A lover despised, mocked, grotesque, hideous, exposed to laughter on that pillory called a theatre, has for me an extraordinary attraction. It is tasting the fruit of hell. An infamous lover, how exquisite! To taste the apple, not of Paradise, but of hell—such is my temptation. It is for that I hunger and thirst. I am that Eve, the Eve of the depths. Probably you are, unknown to yourself, a devil. I am in love with a nightmare. You are a moving puppet, of which the strings are pulled by a spectre. You are the incarnation of infernal mirth. You are the master I require. I wanted a lover such as those of Medea and Canidia. I felt sure that some night would bring me such a one. You are all that I want.”

To be on the radar of royalty your show has probably reached London, which is indeed the case for Gwynplaine and company, as their little production has become quite famous throughout the countryside, and Ursus is eager to cash in on the big city. In Das Grinsende Gesicht, they decide money is needed in order for Gwynplaine and Dea to wed, but either way, they go to London and of course pride goeth before a fall.

The differences in the way the laughing face is shown is also kind of funny in its own way. Das Grinsende Gesicht has the actor’s face in this sort of grimace which really doesn’t resemble a laugh at all and it just looks like he’s in pain, and then we have Veidt who was actually in pain apparently from having his face held in place in this expression that’s somewhat more of a smile.

If this face looks familiar that would be because the inspiration for the appearance of the Joker from the original Batman comics was from Veidt’s portrayal of Gwynplaine in this film. The characters of course are nothing alike as far as personality, but you can see the resemblance otherwise.

Hugo’s description is somewhat more grotesque.

“Nature had been prodigal of her kindness to Gwynplaine. She had bestowed on him a mouth opening to his ears, ears folding over to his eyes, a shapeless nose to support the spectacles of the grimace maker, and a face that no one could look upon without laughing.

We have just said that nature had loaded Gwynplaine with her gifts. But was it nature? Had she not been assisted?

Two slits for eyes, a hiatus for a mouth, a snub protuberance with two holes for nostrils, a flattened face, all having for the result an appearance of laughter; it is certain that nature never produces such perfection single-handed.

But is laughter a synonym of joy?”

For most of the important parts going forward, the films will follow the original novel pretty closely. Das Grinsende Gesicht even manages to work in the message in the bottle floating up out of the sea even though the comprachicos made their escape on land.

While the Queen is learning the truth of things, Josiana is having her twisted infatuation and sending Gwynplaine notes to come meet her, which he actually does in the films.

The 1928 film’s scene where he finds her sleeping and not quite fully dressed, especially after we see Dea rather distraught about the whole situation is again highlighting her sexuality makes her to be this kinda overwhelming presence, then finding out that Gwynplaine is actually Lord Clancharlie is actually closer to how this happened in the novel, but it’s still in the wrong place as far as events go. Novel Josiana is also colder and by far more cruel, telling Gwynplaine to be gone upon becoming something that she can have, instead of the forbidden thing. Now that they’re on the same level, she’s not interested, there’s nothing fun or novel about him anymore.

Then as the story goes, Gwynplaine is taken away by the wapentake, or this rather shady police-like figure, which, if the gibbet scene didn’t give you some insight on the attitude towards judicial matters in this story, there’s a conversation between Ursus and Gwynplaine on the subject:

" Gwynplaine?" "What?" "Look." "Do you see that passer-by?" "The man in black?" "Yes." "Who has a kind of mace in his hand?" "Well?" "Well, Gwynplaine, that man is a wapentake." "What is a wapentake?" "He is a terrible officer." "What has he got in his hand?" “The iron weapon." "What does he do with that?" "First of all, he swears upon it. It is for that reason that he is called the wapentake." "And then?" "Then he touches you with it." "What does that mean?" "That means, follow me." "And must you follow?" "Yes." "Whither?" "How should I know?" "But he tells you where he is going to take you?" "No." "How is that?" "He says nothing, and you say nothing." "But—" "He touches you with the iron weapon. All is over then. You must go." "But where?" "Wherever he likes, Gwynplaine." “And if you resist?" "You are hanged."

The next part is pretty much the same, they go to the prison where Gwynplaine is presented to Hardequanonne, who verifies his identity as a Lord and confesses to his crimes, but meanwhile Ursus thinks Gwynplaine has been executed.

In fact, Gwynplaine is restored to his lands and title, and sent right off to the House of Lords! You’d think things should be looking up from here and everything will work out in the end but if you’re familiar with the novel at all you’ll know that is not the case. In fact, the reason I wanted to include the Austrian film version is because the scene in the House of Lords actually follows the novel, where the Universal one takes a completely different direction from here on out.

On Gwynplaine’s first day in the House of Lords, they’re voting on raising the allowance of the Queen, or the Prince in the novel, all the Lords vote yay, but Gwynplaine votes nay, because having lived in poverty he understands that this is money that could be better spent. Since he’s not doing the thing everyone expected to protect the wealth and power of the wealthy and powerful, or as he says in the novel:

“Between those who oppress and those who are oppressed there is but a difference of place. Your feet tread on the heads of men. The fault is not yours; it is that of the social Babel. The building is faulty, and out of the perpendicular. One floor bears down the other. Listen, and I will tell you what to do. Oh! as you are powerful, be brotherly; as you are great, be tender. If you only knew what I have seen! Alas, what gloom is there beneath! The people are in a dungeon. How many are condemned who are innocent! No daylight, no air, no virtue! They are without hope, and yet—there is the danger—they expect something. Realize all this misery. There are beings who live in death.”

he’s laughed out of parliament.

The irony here being he’s still laughed at despite his permanently laughing face, and there’s not even anything he can do to change his expression to make others take him seriously.

Das Grinsende Gesicht also keeps the tragic ending of the novel, where Dea dies, even though she and Gwynplaine are reunited when he leaves aristocratic life behind, it was too late for her poor, weak, innocent heart. And while this film’s iteration of Gwynplaine decides to traumatize his audience and commit suicide onstage, Hugo just goes straight for the reader’s heart when Gwynplaine walks off the ship taking them off to exile while following Dea’s ghost. Either way is a depressing note to end on, but you can’t possibly have thought Hollywood would leave us with such a horrible fate for our heroes! Of course not. But first we have to go back to the House of Lords and get rid of all the pesky politics.

The point of contention here will have little to do with the poor, nothing to do with an extra 100,000 pounds for any member of the royal family, but rather merely the appearance of Gwynplaine’s face, and his opposition to Queen Anne’s decision that he will marry Duchess Josiana.

There’s then an extremely action packed escape scene. The novel does have a bit of a ruckus in the House of Lords after the whole debacle and Lord David challenges Gwynplaine to a duel to which he doesn’t go.

The whole sequence is actually pretty exciting, and we still end the story where we began except getting on the boat this time to head into exile, but this time it’s a happy reunion and the heroes live! Aside from simplifying the message about aristocracy being corrupt and self-serving, it’s hard to be mad about the changes Universal made to the ending. The novel could have been stopped at the penultimate chapter without changing the point of the story - we’ve still learned the lesson about the value of family and the pitfalls of power and material wealth, Gwynplaine has something more valuable than lordship in Dea, Ursus and Homo, and even though they’ve lost everything they still have each other.

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