DVD Review

The Last Laugh (2008)

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HARDY HAR HAR Emil Jannings stars in the 1924 flick The Last Laugh

The Everett Collection

Credits

Rated: Unrated; DVD Release Date: Sep 30, 2008; Genre: Drama; With: Maly Delschaft and Emil Jannings

By Tim Purtell

Don’t be put off by the arcane, old-world premise of The Last Laugh: A pompous, aging doorman (a remarkable Jannings) at a luxury Berlin hotel is stripped of his prestigious uniform and demoted to handing out towels in the men's room. F.W. Murnau's tearjerker — with its ironic happy ending, groundbreaking camera work, and innovative lack of intertitles — was rightly praised by Alfred Hitchcock as ''almost the perfect film.'' Aside from a handsomely restored print, Kino's two-disc package includes a nifty doc demonstrating how cinematographer Karl Freund and the set designers achieved some of the movie's entrancing effects. A

Posted Sep 30, 2008

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