Just finished watching 'The Man Who Laughs' (loved it) and now I'm looking at the film posters and other Google image results and thinking "Why are they trying to make Gwynplaine look sinister?"
Was it marketed as a horror film? I didn't get that impression while watching.
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I'm not sure that it was originally marketed as a "horror film" or not. You'd think if nothing else, they used a rather macabre-looking Gwynplaine to get audiences' attention. Until I saw the movie, however, *I* was thinking that the main character was some sort of evil, scary being (not unlike the Phantom of the Opera).
What a sweet, GOOD man Gwynplaine turned out to be! We all know the old saying "never judge a book by its cover", but I gotta wonder if in this case, the cover may have scared off some potential "readers"! It almost did so for me, but I figured if I could watch Lon Chaney's "Phantom", I could certainly watch this. ;-)
"Think slow, act fast." --Buster Keaton
I heard that this was a horror film. After just finish watching it, I can say that at most it is depressing. The permanent smile Gwynplaine has is somewhat scary but that's as far as it goes when it comes to being a horror.
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