Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.5

The Last Laugh Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson November 23, 2020

As I've watched and re-watched F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh (1924), I've noticed how maintaining and perhaps surpassing one's rank is vitally important, as exemplified by the hotel doorman played by Emil Jannings. The film's unnamed hotelportier learns from the hotel manager (Hans Unterkircher), who is his unsympathetic supervisor, that he's been demoted to an attendant in the hotel's washroom/lavatory. Murnau and his cinematographer Karl Freund film a long take outside of the hotel manager's glass doors. The windowpane bars signify the hotelportier's psychological imprisonment and claustrophobia. Serving as a porter outside of Berlin's lavish hotel The Atlantic was always a source of pride and dignity for the central protagonist portrayed by Jannings. The demotion reduces him to a melancholic, decrepit old man.

The rank and file order in Germany reminds me a lot of the rigid class structure in Edwardian England. The character I think most of in relation to the plight faced by the doorman is the father of Anthony Hopkins's Stevens in The Remains of the Day (1993). In that film (as well as in the Ishiguro novel), Mr. Stevens, Sr. (Peter Vaughan) is a butler who has waited at tables for fifty-four years. But he suffers a terrible accident in the courtyard of Darlington Hall when he slips and falls while carrying a heavy tray. His duties are greatly reduced and he, like the Jannings character, suffers a demotion. He's already been dealt a major psychological blow, which carries with it his mental demise.

In The Last Laugh, the doorman requests that a night watchman (Georg John) fetch him a bellhop's uniform so that he can wear it home with him so his family doesn't realize he now wears white clothes at his day job. This works for a while until a relative (Emilie Kurz) of his brings something for him at the hotel only to spot him in the lavatory. It seems like the Jannings character won't be able to get out of his class till the epilogue, which scenarist Carl Mayer did not write and seems imparted by the studio, UFA.

The Last Laugh boasts wonderful deep space compositions captured by Freund's lens through the glassed revolving doors, which show the rain-soaked streets of Berlin accented by the nighttime streetlamps. Freund sometimes films forced perspectives and at other times, exaggerated angles with close-ups on Jannings's bearded face. During a dream sequence, Murnau superimposes a bunch of faces in the frame that would make Buñuel proud. The Last Laugh is a visual tour de force with a career-defining performance by Jannings.

The Last Laugh Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Before the film formally begins, the following text appears in white across two screens against a black background:

"The Last Laugh (Der Letzte Mann) was filmed with multiple cameras so that three separate negatives could be created. One negative was used for the creation of prints for the German market. Another was intended for international export, and the third for American distribution.

This is a restoration of the German version, of which a complete negative did not survive. It has been reconstructed through the assembly of the following materials: the original camera negative from the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Berlin; a print (struck in Germany in 1936) by the Museum of Modern Art, New York; fragments of a print from the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, Wiesbaden; and fragments of a print from the Cinémathèque Suisse in Lausanne.

The photochemical restoration was performed in 2001/2002, supervised by Luciano Berriatúa and Camille Blot-Wellens on behalf of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung. The laboratory work was performed by L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna.

The preservation negative of this version was the basis for this 2K digitization. After scanning, extensive retouching and dirt removal were performed."

The Last Laugh appears in its original theatrical exhibition ratio of 1.33:1 on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-25. Kino's 2K restoration looks mostly marvelous with a clear grayscale and deep blacks. There are tramlines and scratches (see Screenshot #s 16-19) but damage marks are neither too prevalent nor too obtrusive. Kino encodes the main feature at a mean video bitrate of 29998 kbps, with the full disc's total bitrate clocking in at 35.36 Mbps.

The Last Laugh Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kino supplies a new musical score (2017) by the Berklee Silent Film Orchestra and Giuseppe Becce's original 1924 score, which was orchestrated by Detlev Glanert in 2003. Both scores receive LPCM Audio 2.0 Stereo tracks (1536 kbps, 16-bit). I listened to both scores and the most recent one fills in various sound effects, such as the whistle blown by Jannings's character. Becce's score only performs the whistle effect when a drunken Jannings is around a bunch of food the morning after a wedding party. Becce's symphonic score fluctuates from brass chords (for a jaunty march) to woodwinds and some light string-playing.

Kino provides the original German title cards, which come with optional English intertitles. There are no separate cards for the unheard dialogue and that was intended by the filmmakers.

The Last Laugh Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• NEW Audio Commentary by Film Historian Noah Isenberg - this feature-length track by Isenberg contains some gaps throughout the 89-minute run time. He delivers a formal and thematic analysis of The Last Laugh, while mixing in trivia and historical facts about the production. This isn't one of Kino Classic's top-tier commentaries but it's solid. In English, not subtitled.

• The Making of The Last Laugh (40:38, upconverted to 1080i) - this excellent documentary first appeared in 2004 on Eureka's 80th Anniversary Edition of The Last Laugh. It features an interview with Helene Luckow, daughter of the art director Robert Herlth, who helped design the sets for Murnau's lost film, 4 Devils (1928). Written and directed by Luciano Berriatúa, this retrospective doc also showcases a wealth of production photographs, storyboards, and conceptual artwork. It frequently displays side-by-side individual frames from the movie's three versions, highlighting discrepancies in scenes and shot compositions. In addition, it demonstrates how the film was restored. In German, with burned-in English subtitles.

• Bonus DVD - this SD disc features the unrestored export version of The Last Laugh, which Kino first released on DVD in 2008. The score by Timothy Brock was composed in 1992-93 and is performed by the Olympia Chamber Orchestra. The late David Shepard produced this disc.

The Last Laugh Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Last Laugh is one of the exemplars of German Expressionist cinema and also one of F.W. Murnau's greatest masterpieces. If you own Kino's 2008 two-disc Restored Deluxe Edition, you will want to upgrade. Kino's 2K-scanned transfer features a sparkling image that has never looked better. You also get three different scores to the movie, including one on the bonus DVD. The extras include a fine commentary by film historian Noah Isenberg and an outstanding making-of documentary. Kino has not ported over any of its image galleries, however. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.