The
most well known
of many creative
references in popular
culture to Victor
Hugo's The Man Who
Laughs is found
in Batman's nemesis
The Joker.
The character's
co-creator, Bob
Kane, described
in a 1970 interview
how a photo of Conrad
Veidt's Gwynplaine
was an early influence
on The Joker's appearance.
Like Gwynplaine,
The Joker is also
the victim of a
horrid disfigurement,
though the comic
book character's
face is changed
by an accident in
which he is immersed
in a vat of chemicals,
bleaching his skin
and discoloring
his hair. Unlike
Gwynplaine, who
is a truly heartbreaking
victim with an origin
born of a stark,
historical reality
that leaves him
somwhat reclusive,
The Joker is a sociopathic
serial-killer with
a psychotic sense
of morbid showmanship.
James Ellroy also
invoked the image
of Gwynplaine in
his novel The Black
Dahlia as a clue
to revealing the
motive behind one
of the victim's
many grotesque wounds.
A
gothic horror tale
entitled 'Sardonicus'
appeared in a 1961
edition of Playboy
and was turned into
a low-budget horror
film by William Castle,
the director of The
Tingler, The House
on Haunted Hill and
13 Ghosts. Titled
Mr. Sardonicus, the
film told the story
of a man who is cursed
with 'risus sardonicus,'
a locked spasm of
the facial muscles,
upon the sight of
his father's corpse
during a moonlit graverobbing.
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