You may remember this post I made at the beginning of the year, about “The Man Who Laughs” being public domain. Well, I looked after my boss’ kids a couple of nights ago, and once I finally convinced them to go to bed, I started to watching it for the first time on their large movie projector! [mild spoilers ahead].
Unfortunately I only managed to watch half an hour of it, because the parents came home (and asked what I’d been watching 😳 Had to explain my weirdness).
I finished it the next day on my own (considerably smaller) TV.
(The format didn’t work too well on my television, some of the picture was missing on both sides, annoyingly).
It was so good! It put me through a lot of stress, because while I’d read that Gwynplaine had a happy ending, I was still so worried something bad would happen to him, Dea, Urus or Homo.
It felt similar to “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “The Phantom of the Opera”, but also very different at the same time. Gwynplaine is the only Universal “monster” character to have been a leading man, and to have not been killed off at the end.
Look at them 😭
I couldn’t help but laugh every time this guy showed up. Look at his goofy face 🤣
It was nice not to feel emotionally destroyed after a tragic movie for once (well, I was a little bit scarred - Gwynplaine had so much inner pain 😖)