him.Just when things seem as bad as they could get for the doorman, the film presents us with the only upside. The film says that ordinarily the story should end here, for an old man like this, but instead, the director has taken mercy on the doorman and presented us with a happy ending. In the end, the man inherits a vast sum of money from an American millionaire. And he lives happily ever after!Analysis Of The Film:The Last Laugh is the last but one expressionistic street film, full of sets that look both realistic and unlikely at the same time, unsettling multiple exposures, fantastic performances particularly Emil Jennings whose weight you can feel on your chest, in a performance through the entire range of emotions. Many writers give Carl Mayer, the co-writer on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and one of the chief minds behind the excellence of German film in the 1920’s, the big share of credit for The Last Laugh. Sadly Murnau is sometimes shrugged off with Karl Freund, the film's cameraman, as part of the team that executed Mayer's idea. Although the film is often criticized for its happy ending, it is done with irony that the film would not be the same without it, in which all wrongs have been righted. In The Last Laugh the man derives his power from his uniform, alcohol and wealth; without at least one of the three he is only a hunched man. He has habits of stroking his mustache and waving hid hand in the air, the habits that disappear when he loses his uniform. After he steals it and quickly pulls it over his shoulders, the first thing he does is stroke that mustache. Or after he becomes rich he starts waving his hand in the air again. This movie is almost purely visual; the few pieces of expository writing are worked into the film cleverly via papers and letters rather than bluntly cleaving the action. Murnau takes a situation that should seem trivial and turns it into high tragedy. Yet the movie still contains some incredib...
