It took nerve for director Harald Braun to attempt an all-talking remake of F.W. Murnau's silent masterpiece The Last Laugh, though it can't be denied that Braun's version has its moment. Still, the remake, Der Letze Mann (The Last Man) lacks the originality and nuance of the silent film, if only because it is retreading familiar ground. In the earlier version, Emil Jannings starred as a proud, self-reliant hotel doorman whose whole world disintegrates when he is demoted to washroom attendant. In the remake, Hans Albers plays a headwaiter who is professionally humiliated when the ownership of the hotel changes hands. The Murnau version ended with an ironically comic coda, which may or may not have been a figment of the protagonist's imagination.
by Hal Erickson
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