The 1924 masterpiece that had a “tremendous influence” on Alfred Hitchcock: “Almost the perfect film”
The 1920s were a revolutionary period for cinema, which was quickly transforming into something bigger than anyone could have ever anticipated when it first emerged as a fascinating new piece of technology.
What initially seemed like a gimmick, a way to capture scenes of ordinary life, over the coming years became a fully-fleshed-out storytelling device, and by the 1920s, feature-length productions and the establishment of film studios were the norm. Hollywood was thriving, and over in England, figures like Charlie Chaplin were dominating the art form, with it only being a matter of time before Alfred Hitchcock would rise to power, asserting himself as one of the most innovative figures of his generation.
The director took his first crack at making a film in 1922 with Number 13, but a lack of funding meant it went unfinished. Eventually, though, he made his first proper feature, The Pleasure Garden, which emerged in 1925 to mixed reviews. In fact, many people didn’t know what to think of it, with The Film Daily, an American publication, calling it a “sex picture wholly unsuitable for the exhibitor who aims to show good clean entertainment”.
So, it made its debut in Germany, not Hitchcock’s native England or even Hollywood, because the movie was simply not deemed accessible enough. With Germany then in the golden age of its Weimar Period, slightly more subversive works of cinema were much more likely to succeed compared to England.
It made sense too because Hitchcock had just spent some time in Germany, working as an assistant director, gaining vital experience in the industry. As a result, he ended up at Babelsberg Studios, just outside of Berlin, for the production of Graham Cutts’ The Blackguard, and in the meantime, he was able to interact with other filmmakers and witness the production of new movies being made, one of which was a FW Murnau masterpiece that would come to shape Hitchcock’s approach to filmmaking.
“The Germans placed great emphasis on telling the story visually, if possible with no titles or very few,” Hitchcock once said, “The Last Laugh was almost the perfect film. It told its story without any subtitles, from beginning to end, entirely by the use of imagery, and that had a tremendous influence on me.”
Released in 1924, The Last Laugh was an example of the Kammerspielfilm, focusing on the characterisation of its lower-class protagonists rather than any dramatic action. The way that Murnau utilised compelling cinematography as a narrative device was a life-changing lesson in visual storytelling for Hitchcock. The camera moved differently according to different characters’ perspectives, while intertitles were, uncharacteristically for the time, nowhere to be seen.
But Murnau, who also directed 1922’s Nosferatu and 1927’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, saw cinema as a boundless creative arena, and he felt, in a way, that he had a duty to experiment, to go against a rulebook that was still actively being written.
Hitchcock was greatly inspired, subsequently paying attention to form as a narrative device within his own work. Look at how Technicolour informs Vertigo, how the choppy editing of Psycho’s shower scene creates such intensity, and how the continuous takes of Rope immerse us in a world of utter chaos. Would any of this have come to fruition if Hitchcock hadn’t witnessed the creation of The Last Laugh when he was just starting out?
