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February
18
The Lasting Influence
of The Man Who Laughs
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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