The Last Laugh, first released in 1924, contrasts the complex plot of Wiene's film and the fantasy films. Murnau's plot, like those that typified the psychological films, was remarkably simple. A doorman looses his job and, with it, his dignity; in the end he regains his lost dignity when he inherits a millionaire's fortune. However, again the camera is used to portray the world from an actor's point of view. For example, the camera maneuvers through the hotel lobby and out to the revolving doors rapidly in the first scene of the film, which gives an aura of excitement and importance to the hotel. When the old man gets drunk the camera spins and blurs, displaying the first-hand view of the character. Murnau even includes a dream sequence, in which the old man dreams that he is throwing a heavy chest up and down in the hotel lobby.Both of these films contain elements of Expressionism. Both are filled with camera shots from the actor's point of view, and use scenery to convey the feeling of the characters and plot. However, the scenery is used in vastly different ways in the two films. In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the setting is insane and impossible, in The Last Laugh it is realistic and downcast. Wiene uses intertitles while Murnau uses only one, to intermission between the believable demotion and the unrealistic inheritance. And while Wiene's film is clearly more primitive than is Murnau's, it is more disturbing and horrific, due to its surreal nature....
