Public Domain
Emil Janning in 'The Last Laugh' (1924)
Emil Janning in 'The Last Laugh' (1924)
Theatre Gigante is one of Milwaukee’s most eclectic performing arts groups. They’re not easily pinned to any one thing, but their seasons are linked by common threads. One recurring theme has been to present silent films in tandem with Little Bang Theory, a Detroit trio performing on toy instruments. Gigante has been pairing movies with Little Bang since the ‘00s and will open their 2025-26 season with another silent picture synced to the trio’s original score.
Gigante’s co-artistic directors Mark Anderson and Isabelle Kralj chose The Last Laugh, director F.W. Murnau’ 1924 … yes, it is a classic, not a synonym for old or a word worn out by overuse, but classic for its enduring significance. The Last Laugh is among the great films from a flourishing period in German cinema, a time when modern aesthetics merged with movies, that most modern of art forms.
The Last Laugh stars Emil Jannings, an actor who—contrary to silent movie stereotypes—never overacted. His face was a motion picture, flickering with hauteur and fatigue, despondency and disbelief, heartbreak and recovery. He plays the doorman at a grand hotel whose job, especially his fancy-dress uniform, forms the larger part of his identity—until he loses it.
Jannings’ doorman is can-do but getting old, too old for hauling steamer trunks on his back like a beast of burden. The hotel manager demotes him to men’s room towel attendant, a task made more demeaning from the loss of his uniform. Jannings is so concerned by his reduced status that he steals his old uniform and wears it when he returns to the dreary tenement where he lives. When his ruse is discovered, he’s mocked and humiliated by his neighbors. The entire story is told visually, through faces and cameras angled and in motion … until The Last Laugh takes a meta turn and spoofs its own narrative tradition with a title card reading: “Here our story should really end, for in actual life, the forlorn old man would have little to look forward to but death. The author took pity on him, however, and provided quite an improbable epilogue” i.e. a happy ending.
When it was released, The Last Laugh was interpreted as a satire of German militarism with its cult of rank and uniform. Kralj sees its contemporary resonance. “We thought it was a great time to show the film because of all the people being let go, losing their jobs, furloughed. It also deals with ageism and the cruelty of the masses,” she says.
In past seasons, Theatre Gigante collaborated with Little Bang Theory for screenings of silent films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lodger, Victor Sjöström’s The Wind and Murnau’s unsettling vampire story, Nosferatu.
Anderson met Little Bang Theory’s ringleader, Frank Pahl, in college and praises the trio’s music as “warm and poetic. They play a mix of things—tiny drums, keyboards, gongs, glockenspiels and chimes—small things that make a sound when held to a microphone.”
Theatre Gigante presents The Last Laugh with Little Bang Theory, 3 p.m. Sunday Nov. 23, at Jan Serr Studio, 2155 N. Prospect Ave.
