Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's wonderful direction. Karl Freund's living camera. Walter Röhrig's half-expressionist settings. And Emil Janning's performance. Everything which makes this film unforgettable. This is one of the greatest films of the silent cinema. Pure cinema: only images, no inter-titles. Well, just two: to warn us at the beginning; to explain that the end was so depressing that they had to shoot another one. This is what we call a universal film. It is also a very simple story: a hotel doorman sinks and becomes a bathroom attendant.What makes this film great is the way this story is told. We follow each level of the old man's downfall. This small and common story becomes a great classical tragedy. This man with his shiny costume is no ordinary doorman: he commands the army of the people receiving the customers in the hotel with his whistle. He is not a doorman, he is the Marshall Hindenburg! But Time gets a grip on him. He is now a weak old man. He cannot carry suitcases like before. He is "degraded". He cannot wear his uniform anymore: it will rot in a cupboard. Now, he will look after the hotel bathroom, in the basement. Everyone in the hotel is above him: professionally and physically. He now has the lowest job in the hotel. Moreover, he sometimes has to crawl on the floor to clean it. Now that he works in the basement, we can say that his job has become an inferno. But one has to save the face: nobody must know what happened to him. Before coming home, he brings his old costume and wears it in front of his daughter and the neighbors. Unfortunately, his secret is revealed and everyone mocks him. Even his daughter. He cannot come back home. So he stays in his bathroom, alone, forgotten. Maybe waiting for death. This is the first ending. But as I said previously, the producers thought it was a bit too pessimistic (or was it too realistic?). So they shot another one. I cannot believe in this second ending.

F.W. Murnau didn't have a typical storyline - he could do pure Gothic horror as in Nosferatu, social commentary as in Phantom, fantasy with a religious theme as in Faust, and the redemption of love as in Sunrise. What ties Murnau's work together is its imagery. He excelled at it as few directors ever did. "The Last Laugh" is a tale about an older man who is proud of his position as doorman at a prominent German hotel. One night he has had to carry some heavy luggage as part of his duties and he takes a break. As luck would have it, his supervisor sees him taking this short rest and assumes the worst. The next day the old man is reassigned to the job of washroom attendant. He does his best to hide his change of position from his friends, but they find out anyway. To make matters worse, they assume he's always been lying about his job and that he has thus always been a washroom attendant. At this point you might wonder - why exactly is this film named The Last Laugh? There is a somewhat tacked on ending that is the foundation of the film's title. I won't spoil it for you.

From the very first shots of this movie, my friend and I were just in awe of the way Murnau uses the camera to set up his situation. There's an intimacy to it, he brings us close to the characters. Also the way he uses the angles and straight lines of the windows, doors and buildings to frame his shots impresses us immediately with the dehumanizing nature of the city much as it did in his Oscar Winning American film "Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans." As if the impressive direction and photography weren't enough to distinguish this as one of the most impressive films I've seen from the early 20s, the whole affair is anchored by a brilliant performance from Emil Jannings. He plays a man who is retired from his position as a hotel doorman and demoted to the washroom, which leads to a sort of nervous breakdown imaginatively filmed and a fetishistic attachment to the uniform of his former office.This isn't a plot heavy film or a drama heavy film, basically it's a character study. It's remarkable for the fact that there are no dialog title cards, and only 2 or 3 informational title cards relating to various events and anchored to specific informational devices interior to the film (e.g. we see the boss' letter telling him of his demotion). The quality of the acting not only from Jannings but from the entire cast (perhaps with the exception of a broadly played gossip woman) we see very natural performances that you often don't in silent films.Of the 3 films I've seen by Murnau, this film impressed me the most. It doesn't have the melodramatic elements that make "Sunrise" a bit more predictable, and it doesn't have the languid pace that slows "Nosferatu" for me. It reminds me in some ways of the films I've seen from the 30s by Jean Renoir -- there's this fantastic way that the camera follow the actors around on the streets, pulling ahead of them momentarily and then allowing the main actor to zip through the frame while it focuses on incidental details. I'm thinking specifically of the scene where Jannings escapes after stealing back the uniform, but there are several scenes along these lines.Essentially I saw this film as a message of hope, interestingly couched with an explanation from the film-makers that "in reality" it would not have ended happily. It's too easy to see this card, one of as I said only 2 or 3 in the entire film and the only one that's not tied to a specific device, as Murnau's way of eating his cake and having it too. Is there a touch of the ending from this movie, with the two former bums riding off together, that comes to mind when you see Wilder's "Some Like It Hot"? Or has this been filtered by way of Mssrs. Lubitsch and Renoir et al? Either way I would describe the movie overall as purely cinematic, miles and miles beyond normal film-making techniques and taste of the early 20s and even arguably of today.

Der Letzte Mann (1924) ** out of **** Directed by F.W Murnau With Emil Jannings Technically creative Murnau piece about Jannings being tortured and humiliated by anyone when is fired of his job. Count with first rate camera work which shows that big talent of one of the most important directors of all time. Jannings is excellent in his role but the story is quickly forced to an unrealistic and disappointing ending. Named for much - but not for all - as one of the greatest silents of all time. Just one with some highlights but not as incredible as much said; Not the best Murnau.