There has been only one true film version of Victor Hugo's novel The Man Who Laughs, a brilliantly made production from 1928 in the silent era.

Conrad Veidt starred as the tragic Gwynplaine, the man whose mouth had been cut to resemble a perpetual, clown-like smile in his childhood. The part had originally been offered to Lon Chaney who turned it down in favor the dramatic, non-grotesque roles that he played in the last few years of his life.

Veidt was already known for several unforgettable roles in dark cinema including Cesare the murderous sleepwalker in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and as a man who is given the surgically grafted hands of a killer in The Hands of Orlac. Shortly before his untimely death at the age of 50 he starred in Casablanca as the nazi Major Strasser.

In a make-up trick first used by the master, Lon Chaney, the actor wore a special set of prosthetic teeth that were made with hooks for pulling his mouth into the deformed "smile" of Gwynplaine.