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‘the last laugh’: film review.

Retirees Chevy Chase and Richard Dreyfuss hit the road in the senile Netflix comedy 'The Last Laugh.'

By Keith Uhlich

Keith Uhlich

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It took cojones for Chevy Chase — forever and always holiday-roading patriarch Clark Griswold — to star in a remake of F.W. Murnau’s monumental 1924 silent The Last Laugh. Oh, wait. That’s not what this is? An original story by writer-director Greg Pritikin, you say, about a retired talent manager, Al Hart (Chase), who hits the road with a former client, Buddy Green ( Richard Dreyfuss ), to rekindle their glory days? OK, well, at least Murnau won’t be rolling over in his grave with Emil Jannings.

Viewers’ eyes will spin in their sockets, however, from the first dialogue exchange, as Al makes an unhip mention of The Shins (“Ah, they’re terrific. Very emo”) and his granddaughter, Jeannie (Kate Micucci), winkingly notes how his reference is far past its sell-by date. Is there anything more desperate than pleadingly self-aware humor? How about an entire movie in which “desperate” is the default mode?

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Release date: Jan 11, 2019

This is evident from the moment Buddy shows up in the retirement community Al and Jeannie are touring, raving from behind a walker and a goofy disguise about the horrors of senior center life. He’s just kidding, of course (though this scene, like every single other, is laugh-free). Buddy and Al actually go way back. Many years before, Al booked Buddy as a guest comic on The Ed Sullivan Show, though   he didn’t show up to that potential date with destiny. Instead, Buddy abandoned show business, started a family and became the self-proclaimed funniest podiatrist in California. Yet the stand-up itch never truly left him. So Al suggests they take a road trip from West Coast to East so Buddy can hone his solo curmudgeon act before small crowds until, finally, guesting on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in New York.

God forbid any late-life spiritual journey should culminate with Jimmy freakin’ Fallon. It’s no real spoiler to say that the goal is shifted along the way to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, which is filmed, not-so-coincidentally for the story’s sentimental purposes, in the Ed Sullivan Theater. That’s poetry, man. But if you think bespectacled Stephen will actually make an appearance (or, hell, that the actual interior of the Ed Sullivan Theater will be utilized in the mawkish finale), I’ve got a prime piece of Netflix Original Content™ to pitch you.

Let’s focus on something else, though not for too long on the interlude in Tijuana during which hard-partying Buddy drinks the water and gets a horrific case of the runs. (A key image of what we might term the “It Has Come to This” genre: Academy Award-winner Dreyfuss sitting in anguish atop the toilet in a backwater jail cell, his shirt stained with sweat and vomit.) No, let’s talk instead about the scene in which Al and Doris Montgomery ( Andie MacDowell ), the free-spirited Kansas City-ian he romances, take shrooms.

Yes, Chevy Chase and Andie MacDowell do shrooms together. Who’da thunk? You might be surprised to learn it occasions the film’s only visually memorable section, featuring a colorful musical number in which MacDowell channels Cyd Charisse and some eye-catching use of rear-projection that makes it seem like the late Alain Resnais stepped in for a day to guest-direct. Abraham Lincoln also appears because, sure, why not?

All highs eventually fade, and The Last Laugh quickly returns to its noxious mix of sweet and sour. A cancer diagnosis is hidden until an ineffective and inept dramatic reveal. Almost everyone finds Buddy’s sixth-rate Don Rickles act endearing and hilarious, which nullifies any dramatic tension. And the film concludes with Chase proudly posing nude, his nethers hidden from view by a hunk of sculpting clay. Be grateful for small mercies.

Production companies: Netflix, Paris Film Distributor: Netflix Cast: Chevy Chase, Andie MacDowell, Richard Dreyfuss Director-writer: Greg Pritikin Executive producers: Todd Lewis, Robert Menzies Producer: Rob Paris Music: Jay Weigel Cinematography: Steve Gainer Editing: Michael Palmerio Casting: Eyde Belasco Production design: Nate Jones Art direction: John Sanchez Set decoration: Andrew W. Bofinger Costume design: Ann Walters

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The old man is proud beyond all reason of his position as a hotel doorman, and even prouder of his uniform, with its gold braids and brass buttons, its wide shoulders, military lapels and comic opera cuffs. Positioned in front of the busy revolving door, he greets the rich and famous and is the embodiment of the great hotel's traditions--until, in old age, he is crushed by being demoted to the humiliating position of washroom attendant.

F.W. Murnau's "The Last Laugh" (1924) tells this story in one of the most famous of silent films, and one of the most truly silent, because it does not even use printed intertitles. Silent directors were proud of their ability to tell a story through pantomime and the language of the camera, but no one before Murnau had ever entirely done away with all written words on the screen (except for one sardonic comment we'll get to later). He tells his story through shots, angles, moves, facial expressions and easily read visual cues.

The film would be famous just for its lack of titles, and for its lead performance by Emil Jannings , which is so effective that both Jannings and Murnau were offered Hollywood contracts and moved to America at the dawn of sound. But "The Last Laugh" is remarkable also for its moving camera. It is often described as the first film to make great use of a moving point of view. It isn't, really; the silent historian Kevin Brownlow cites "The Second-in-Command," made 10 years earlier. But it is certainly the film that made the most spectacular early use of movement, with shots that track down an elevator and out through a hotel lobby, or seemingly move through the plate-glass window of a hotel manager's office (influencing the famous shot in " Citizen Kane " that swoops down through the skylight of a nightclub).

Murnau's technical mastery makes all of his films exciting to see. In the vampire movie " Nosferatu ," in the fiendish visions of " Faust ," in the imaginary city of " Sunrise ," he created phantasmagoric visions that seemed to define his characters: They were who they were because of what surrounded them. This is a key to German Expressionism, the influential silent style that told stories through bold and exaggerated visual elements--reality slipping over into nightmare and back again.

In the case of "The Last Laugh," however, Murnau's story is more of a traditional narrative than usual. He follows the old doorman in almost every shot, cutting away only to show what the doorman sees. And he exaggerates the scale of the hotel and the city to emphasize how important it seems to the doorman; the opening shot, coming down in the elevator and tracking across the lobby (the camera was in a wheelchair), peers out through revolving doors into the rain, showing elegant people and glittering surroundings; the doorman is full of himself as he whistles for cabs and salutes arriving customers.

In those early scenes Murnau shoots the doorman from a low angle, so that he seems to tower over other characters. He is tall and wide, his face surrounded by a beard and whiskers that frame its cherubic pomp. But beneath the grand display his body is failing him, and we see him struggle with an enormous steamer trunk and then take a moment's rest in the lobby--just long enough for the prissy assistant manager to see him and write up a note. And the next day when he arrives for work, his world shakes and the camera swirls as he sees another man in uniform, doing his job.

Much of the doorman's happiness in life depends on the respect paid to his uniform by his neighbors around the courtyard of his apartment building. Murnau built this enormous set (most of the film, including rainy exteriors, was shot on sound stages) and peopled it with nosy busybodies who don't miss a thing. Ashamed to be seen without his uniform, the doorman actually steals it from a locker to wear it home. Later, when his deception is revealed, there is a nightmarish montage of laughing and derisive faces.

His tragedy "could only be a German story," wrote the critic Lotte Eisner, whose 1964 book on Murnau reawakened interest in his work. "It could only happen in a country where the uniform (as it was at the time the film was made) was more than God." Perhaps the doorman's total identification with his job, his position, his uniform and his image helps foreshadow the rise of the Nazi Party; once he puts on his uniform, the doorman is no longer an individual but a slavishly loyal instrument of a larger organization. And when he takes the uniform off, he ceases to exist, even in his own eyes.

Murnau was bold in his use of the camera, and lucky to work with Karl Freund, a great cinematographer who also immigrated to Hollywood. Freund filmed many other German silent films, notably Fritz Lang's futurist parable "Metropolis" (1926), and his first notable American film was "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930). He was one of the links between German expression and its American cousin, film noir (see his work with John Huston and Humphrey Bogart in "Key Largo").

Here he liberated the camera from gravity. There is a shot where the camera seems to float through the air, and it literally does; Freund had himself and the camera mounted on a swing, and Abel Gance borrowed the technique a few years later for his "Napoleon." There are shots where superimposed images swim through the air, the famous shot that seems to move through the glass window, and a moment when the towering Hotel Atlantic seems to lean over to crush the staggering doorman.

I mentioned the one place in the film where a title card is used. It is not necessary, and the film would make perfect sense without it. But Murnau seemed compelled to use it, almost as an apology for what follows. We see the pathetic old man wrapped in the cloak of the night watchman who was his friend, and the movie seems over. Then comes the title card, which says, "Here the story should really end, for, in real life, the forlorn old man would have little to look forward to but death. The author took pity on him and has provided a quite improbable epilogue."

Improbable, and unsatisfying, because a happy ending is conjured out of thin air. The doorman accidentally inherits a fortune, returns to the hotel in glory and treats all his friends to champagne and caviar, while his old enemies glower and gnash their teeth. It is this ending that inspires the English language title. The original German is "Die Letzte Mann," or "the last man," which in addition to its obvious meaning may also evoke "the previous man"--the doorman who was replaced. The dimwitted practice of tacking a contrived happy ending onto a sad story was not unique with Murnau (who had the grace to apologize in advance for it), and has only grown more popular over the decades.

As for Emil Jannings (1884-1950), he made "The Last Laugh" at the top of his form; considered one of the world's greatest stars, he specialized in towering figures such as Peter the Great, Henry VIII, Louis XVI, Danton and Othello. The doorman's fall from grace was all the greater because the audience remembered the glory of his earlier roles. Jannings came to America at the same time as Murnau, won the Academy Award for "The Last Command" (1928), was rendered unemployable by the rise of the talkies, returned to Germany and found one of his most famous roles, as Marlene Dietrich's erotically mesmerized admirer in " The Blue Angel " (1930). Jannings embraced the rise of the Nazis, made films that supported them, was appointed head of a major German production company, and fell into disgrace after the war. The coat no longer fit.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Last Laugh’ On Netflix, Where Chevy Chase And Richard Dreyfuss Take A Retired Comedian’s Act On The Road

Where to Stream:

• The Last Laugh (2019)

Sometimes Netflix drops a movie that doesn’t get a lot of fanfare but is a pleasant surprise. The Last Laugh is in that category; Chevy Chase and Richard Dreyfuss star as a pair of old guys who would rather go on the road than stay in their retirement community. Read on to find out more…

THE LAST LAUGH : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Al Hart (Chevy Chase), who managed comedians for over 50 years, is more or less retired. He wants to keep working, but his last client, Max Becker (Lewis Black), fired him. He’s been struggling on his own, and his granddaughter Jeannie (Kate Micucci) is concerned. So she encourages him to visit a retirement community and see if he wants to live there. He’s resistant, but starts to change his mind when he runs into his first-ever client, Buddy Green (Richard Dreyfuss), pretending to be a crotchety old fart with blacked out teeth.

In 1967, Al had Buddy all set up to make a big splash on The Ed Sullivan Show , but Buddy quit before that appearance, eventually opening a successful podiatry practice instead. But Al always thought that Buddy had talent; the longer Al stays at the retirement community, listening to gossip on who died and taking trips to the mall, the more he wants to work again. He tries to convince Buddy to take his act out on the road, but he’s resistant. When Buddy’s girlfriend dies, however, he agrees, and the two set out on the road, playing tiny clubs and sometimes hostile audiences, with the goal of getting to New York and appearing on The Tonight Show.

During the roadtrip, the two find out a little more about each other, have disagreements, sleep in crappy hotel rooms and ignore calls from Jeannie and Buddy’s son Charlie (Chris Parnell). In Kansas, Al meets a retired art teacher named Doris Montgomery (Andie MacDowell) who opens his mind to pot and ‘shrooms, and accompanies the pair on the road. But Buddy has something he wants to tell Al that he can’t because Doris is there.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It’s a buddy road movie, with the expected beats, conflicts, and happy ending. There are dozens of films that are exactly like The Last Laugh .

Performance Worth Watching: Dreyfuss’s standup style is interesting. As Buddy, he shoves his hands in his pockets and is very gentle and avuncular with how he approaches the audience. And what’s also interesting is that it’s real, modern standup, not schticky Borscht Belt jokes. For that we can thank comedy consultants Fred Stoller, Chris Flemming, Jimmy O. Yang and Allan Harvey.

Memorable Dialogue: Buddy to Charlie when Charlie and Jeannie find Al and Buddy in Chicago: “I’ve had a great life. I didn’t exactly live it the way I thought I would, but at least let me die the way I want.” (Yes, the news Buddy wanted to tell Al was pretty important.)

Single Best Shot: During a mushroom-induced hallucination, Al and Doris ride in a pedicab peddled by a guy dressed as Abraham Lincoln. Uh, you’ll have to watch what came before it for to get the reference.

Sex and Skin: We see far too much of Chase’s old-guy bod during a closing credits sequence.

Our Take: There’s nothing inherently wrong with The Last Laugh (not to be confused with the 2016 documentary of the same name, also available on Netflix). Greg Pritikin ( Dummy, Easy to Assemble ) wrote and directed this film, and it’s entertaining in the light and airy way that any kind of buddy movie like this can be. It meanders a bit, especially with an extended sequence where Al hallucinates after Doris feeds him mushrooms, but it’s just one of those films that you can watch if you’re curious and come away with a little smile and nothing more.

And that’s OK! Not every movie needs to make you think deep thoughts. It helps that Chase and Dreyfuss handle Pritikin’s script with their usual degree of skill. Chevy leans into his grumpy guy persona as Al, and there are moments where we see Al staring into space and wonder what Chevy is reacting to. In other words, we know Chevy can do better when he’s not being funny, but he’s OK here.

• Chevy Chase

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Dreyfuss is really the one to see here. We wouldn’t put this performance up there with some of the best of his career, but it did remind us of why this guy used to be one of the most bankable actors of the ’70s and ’80s. Buddy is crotchety, but Dreyfuss really makes you want to see Buddy reach New York and achieve some sort of attention on what we find out is his last chance to live the dream he gave up 50 years ago.

MacDowell, perhaps a bit too young to be Chevy’s love interest here, still shines as the artistic and adventurous Doris, and the first half-hour, where Al and Buddy are still hanging around the retirement community, was a nice counterpoint to the two of them going on tour, even if Pritikin more or less forgets about the residents there once Buddy and Al go on the road.

Our Call: STREAM IT. It’s a classic “watch while folding laundry” movie, with a few laughs and an earnest performance from Dreyfuss.

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream The Last Laugh on Netflix

• Stream It Or Skip It

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The last laugh, common sense media reviewers.

Senior-citizen buddy comedy has salty language, sex.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

We all need to feel purposeful and useful in our l

Al is a lost soul after his wife's death and retir

Several people are reported to have died of more o

A man sleeps with his girlfriend every night at th

"F--k," "s--t," "d--k," "t-ts," "bitch," "blow," "

Adults smoke marijuana and ingest mushrooms. Crack

Parents need to know that The Last Laugh is a comedy about an aging talent agent and an aging comic coping with retirement and feeling relegated to the indignities of old age. The agent resists being deposited in a home by a caring granddaughter, but once there meets a former client and, like two mischievous…

Positive Messages

We all need to feel purposeful and useful in our lives, no matter what age. We tend to regret the things we didn't do. The world needs funny people, not just on stage, but in life.

Positive Role Models

Al is a lost soul after his wife's death and retirement. Buddy is still a live wire at 80, but gets itchy for action when his girlfriend dies. At his age, he still wants to follow his dreams.

Violence & Scariness

Several people are reported to have died of more or less natural causes. A man has been given a terminal diagnosis.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A man sleeps with his girlfriend every night at the retirement home. A man who hasn't dated in many years isn't sure the woman he has met wants to have sex with him. Men joke about erectile dysfunction and the need for Viagra. Someone recalls seeing "a broad f--k a burro" in a Tijuana night club.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"F--k," "s--t," "d--k," "t-ts," "bitch," "blow," "peeing," "ass," "come," "orgasm," and "horny." Middle-finger gesture shown.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adults smoke marijuana and ingest mushrooms. Crack and meth are mentioned in jokes.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Last Laugh is a comedy about an aging talent agent and an aging comic coping with retirement and feeling relegated to the indignities of old age. The agent resists being deposited in a home by a caring granddaughter, but once there meets a former client and, like two mischievous adolescents, they escape and hit the road to revive the comic's career. A man receives a terminal diagnosis. Adults smoke marijuana and ingest mushrooms. Crack and meth are mentioned in jokes. The language is salty, including "f--k," "s--t," "t-ts," and "d--k," and discussion of elderly sex is frank. But the focus is on the need for each of us, no matter how old, to feel useful and engaged in life. It's unlikely that teens will find this investigation into the march toward mortality of tremendous interest, but its messages might be useful nevertheless. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (3)

Based on 3 parent reviews

Very nasty movie!

What's the story.

THE LAST LAUGH finds Al ( Chevy Chase ) retired and mourning his wife's death. He feels useless without work and has fallen a few times, worrying his granddaughter (Kate Micucci). He balks, but moves to a retirement community where he runs into a former client, Buddy ( Richard Dreyfuss ), a comic who was on the verge of breaking through into the big time. Instead he quit before a major gig, opting for a steady life as a successful podiatrist, husband, and father. Al presses him to go back on the road and achieve the show biz success he let slip away 50 years before. When Buddy's girlfriend dies, he and Al load up the car and hit the road, playing dicey night clubs in Kansas and Texas, with the lofty and unlikely goal of ending up on The Tonight Show in New York. Buddy smokes marijuana daily, but Al tosses his stash when he thinks he's being stopped by highway patrol, requiring Al to score some weed while Buddy is performing. Along the way, Al meets Doris ( Andie Macdowell ), a free-spirited artist, who joins them on their adventure. The Tonight Show doesn't happen, but after important revelations, and an assist from former client Max (Lewis Black), Al gets Buddy a satisfying and poignant gig.

Is It Any Good?

This movie, like the Netflix series The Kominsky Method , comically looks at the anguish of aging baby boomers as they lose loved ones and negotiate their increasing marginalization. It's not necessarily a subject even the most mature teens would appreciate. Unlike Kominsky , the script here is uneven and characters are underdeveloped. The Last Laugh 's fundamental premise, that a retired agent could, in just a matter of hours, arrange gigs all over the country, certainly seems questionable, and a hallucinatory song-and-dance number feels awkward and out of place.

But Dreyfuss, who is 71 and playing an 80-year-old, is vivid and animated in the flashier, funnier role. Chase, at 74, plays a phlegmatic character, the story's straight man. His slapstick comedies of the past showcased his snark and physicality, but here his dramatic talents may not measure up to what the story requires. Still, the movie is likable and at times touching.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about societal attitudes toward older people. Do you think young people are sometimes dismissive of older people unfairly? Why? How are older people portrayed in The Last Laugh ?

Older adults have lots of experience that younger people might benefit from. How do you think they could collaborate to make the world a better place?

Easy transportation has given modern Americans the opportunity to move from place to place more frequently, compared to families of the past who used to stay in one place, allowing relatives to live together or nearby and take care of each other in times of need, illness, and old age. Can you think of ways loved ones can take care of each other today?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : January 11, 2019
• Cast : Richard Dreyfuss , Chevy Chase , Andie MacDowell , Lewis Black , Kate Micucci
• Director : Greg Pritikin
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Netflix
• Genre : Comedy
• Run time : 98 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• Last updated : February 18, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Movie Review: The Last Laugh (2016)

• Roberto Montiel
• Movie Reviews
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• --> February 27, 2017

“A word — you know: a corpse.

Come let us wash it, come let us comb it, come let us turn its eye heavenward.” — Paul Célan, “Nocturnally Pursed”

In 1951, a little more than six years after the Nazis were defeated and the last camp debarred, the German philosopher and critical theorist Theodor Adorno equally foreclosed the possibility of bringing words, or anything with them, to life. “There can be no poetry after Auschwitz,” he wrote, barring any beauty that could be derived from a world wherein something like this had happened. Shame was the most appropriate feeling to bear after such barbaric times. And hard will the human kind have to work to win back their right to make art. The German language had met the highest standards as a language that served to instruct systematic death. The German language had laid itself as the vehicle through which the unspeakable was ordained. The German language had become the official language of barbarism. It was not a dead language, but it became the very language of death.

Then Paul Célan came to clean the German language. Not only did his poetry cleanse all Nazi traces from his mother tongue, but it also proved Adorno’s dictum wrong with each and every word. Poetry was possible after the Holocaust. The German language could be used to write poetry that stemmed from the very innards of the death camps, of traumatized childhoods, and of hateful words. Words, as corpses, could be nursed to resignification, could be used compassionately, could be washed and taken care of — words could speak to the heavens just as much as they had been used to veritably translate the native tongue of hell.

But a more than fair follow-up question to Célan’s answer, a question that still swirls from within Adorno’s disturbed waters, is: Is comedy possible after Auschwitz? Of course, Auschwitz is the metonymy everyone knows for the word Holocaust, in the same way in which Holocaust is the code word for any possible catastrophe clothed as a final solution; you know, like those that have been winning momentum once again now that totalitarianism and madness have been reinstated as heads of (what posed as) the most democratic state in the world (or so it preached) — terms like “nuclear holocaust,” “environmental holocaust,” “cannibal holocaust,” or, more recently, “orange holocaust.” Metonymy aside, the question stands still: Ss comedy possible after the Holocaust, or, more exactly, after the Shoah?

This is the question that Ferne Pearlstein asks to a range of Jewish voices in her The Last Laugh . From comedy legends, like Mel Brooks or Carl Reiner, to legendary provocateurs, like Gilbert Gottfried or Sarah Silverman, to Holocaust survivors, the film asks this basic question to its subjects, which elicits, naturally, a varying consensus as to which degree this is still an off-limits event for comedy — unreachable and necessarily in bad taste.

Of course, the element of temporal distance, of historical remoteness, is thoughtfully approached by most of the comics who attempt a reasonable response, even a carefully considered justification, to their position and, in many cases, to their acts. A common point of comparison is 9/11, and how off-limits this event seemed (still seems for a portion of the American public) recently after it happened. The comparison, however, although accurate in the feelings that immediately followed the event in the US, is as America-centric (yes, America first) as it can get. It is difficult to put one’s head around the fact that 6 to 8 million people, predominantly Jewish, but also Roma, Lesbians, Gays (to name a few) people were exterminated and, before, inhumanely treated, stripped of their humanity, systematically exposed to the unspeakable for a period that spanned, in many cases, half a decade is in any way comparable with an attack that took place one morning during which two towers (doubtless mighty symbols) collapsed as two airplanes flew into them (and another one into the Western side of the Pentagon, and then another into the ground in Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania) with almost 3,000 casualties and about twice as many injured.

I am not, to be sure, trying to quantify deaths in order to void what happened on 9/11. My point, however, is that so many genocides had taken place after the Holocaust (Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Burundi, Indonesia, to name a few) and so many peoples had been slayed, persecuted and systematically exterminated since (the Roma people, the First Nations across North America, the Mayans in Guatemala, the Huarpes in Argentina, and the list goes on and on). The fact that none of these conflicts make it to the list when talking about incidents too shameful to laugh, and that 9/11 has to be put side by side with the Holocaust, still bedazzles me. Then again, when thinking about events we do laugh now and were just as sanguinary and senseless, such as the Spanish Inquisition, the comedians point flies loudly and clearly. And then, perhaps this is the best strategy through which an average American can approximate their experience to the experience of others. With the exception, indeed, of some, like those who had gone through true horror, like Renee Firestone, maybe the only protagonist of The Last Laugh , an educator and survivor who very much incarnates the most moderate position possible in the topic. A woman who never lost her ability to enjoy life, or her ability to laugh, or her ability to love. The only voice in the film who actually talks about other genocides and ethnic cleansings going on in the world, and who is able to wisely put in context these atrocities with her feelings after 9/11.

Size matters, however, and scale does make a difference. While in some countries (such as Mexico, as I can well attest) people were making jokes (sometimes very good ones) about 9/11 by 10/11, and found them laughable, the Holocaust as the metonymic genocide of the 20th Century has been a touchy matter pretty much everywhere in the world. In this way, The Last Laugh does touch on something that can be universalized (pretty much as Adorno did) when asking the question about whether or not the main purpose of comedy is to get laughs, and the main aim of laughter is to produce joy — in which case it is, of course, of bad taste to make comedy of any human tragedy, big or small, for, arguably, the trivialization of human suffering is one of the most undignified expressions imaginable by a human being. Entirely unethical.

Pearlstein, nonetheless, seems to be talking to subjects, professionals and audience, who want to go beyond the first layer of comedy. At its best, The Last Laugh touches upon the very nature of funny (or funniness) and distinguishes it from the nature of jokes. Most comics seem to agree with the fact that a joke needs to be funny. In fact, the more problematic its subject the funnier the joke must be. But most of them are clear as well that not everything funny is to be made into a joke. And here is where the least controversial subject of Holocaust comedy appears: As we look at the nature of ridicule.

Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin . . . Trump, we have very few qualms with laughing at them. They are so outlandish in their characters, actions and claims that no joke is needed to make them funny — most of comedy’s main resources (i.e., hyperbole, juxtaposition, synecdoche, simile) are already present in the personas of these people. Often times, all that is needed is to take them out of the context in which they forcefully make sense to see their ridiculousness in all its splendor. Hardly any joke needs to be made. It is enough to confront them with the truth, with the reality they so fiercely fight against to make us laugh at them. And we feel no pity, no shame in doing so. On the contrary, if anything, we feel empowered. That’s the nature of ridicule. It takes away power from the oppressor, if briefly and with very limited effects in reality (people still died, people still suffered). Yet it does feel like a rightful revenge. And yet, despite its limited effect, it does get into the bones of the oppressor, for this is one of the first things they fight against: Satirists and fools are the first purged and/or silenced in authoritarian times.

But what about the oppressed? What about those who suffered? What about the target group, ethnicity, people? What about the event itself, beyond the realm of the perpetrators? This is where consensus breaks in The Last Laugh , and where the film’s originality resides. Unfortunately, as well, this is the point most weakly made.

Likely, the archival material is the treasure that makes this film worth watching. Sadly, the potential that this material had to help move forward its central question is significantly overseen. Watching clips of inmates putting on variety shows at death camps, accompanied by the narration of those who participated, provides our understanding of fun with an insight that is difficult to capture in words — and boy did the participants try! We are able to see that joy does not trivialize tragedy; rather, it makes it bearable. The difference here is that no one is laughing at anything in particular (at the oppressors, at the situation, at the pain, at the suffering, at the oppressed, at the horror), nor is anybody taking anything lightly. What makes all the difference is that they are finding humor inside it all (the situation, the pain, etc.). It is not at and/or about and/or with anyone that they laughed, that we laugh. It is inside.

Alas, Pearlstein is not able to get a grip of this insight and fails to integrate it into her interviews and moreover, into the overall arc of her film. At some point, the mocking-heads she has (prestige and funniness aside) lose our interest (particularly if we love comedy and have followed many of them throughout the years), as we’ve heard what they are saying many times before. This laughing inside does not get to those voices who struggle to articulate why nothing should be off-limits to comedy, but are unable to do so at the face of actually turning it into an argument, or a reason, or even a jibe. Jibes are plenty, for instance, when some of them (i.e., Sarah Silverman or Jeff Ross) hint at the fact that fetishization is a form of trivialization — and that often the victims end up objectified and their suffering fetishized. This point, nonetheless, is more pristinely clear in their acts than in their interviews (these latter entirely dispensable).

Ultimately, the possibilities that the laugh inside insight open (if shallowly explored) by The Last Laugh do offer another angle to the question: Can we laugh compassionately? Always unilateral and divisive, the summit of rationality, rationing, discernment, it would seem as though laughter has no business with compassion. But, when looked more closely, more intimately, we find that tragedy and laughter are two tones for the same sound leading to the same result. If tragedy leads to catharsis and comedy leads to laughter, they both do so by the same means (often meanly): By way of acknowledgement and/or recognition. And no acceptance, no reconciliation, no healing is possible without recognizing our past, and, more importantly, our present . . . and nothing makes us more aware of our present than a good laugh. Our gaping mouths can also be turned heavenward.

Tagged: comedian , death , emotions , Holocaust , interview

Roberto is a PhD recipient in Philosophy and Postcolonial Literature.

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Film Review – The Last Laugh (2019)

There’s been a slew of films about “ old men seeking to relive their glory days ” that it’s almost become a sub-genre in of itself. Sometimes this can lead into a meaningful piece of cinema (such as Venus starring the late great Peter O’ Toole or Nebraska starring Bruce Dern); other times into something undeniably charming (such as The Bucket List starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman); but it can also lead into something rather embarrassing (such as Last Vegas starring Robert De Niro, Kevin Kline, Michael Douglas and Morgan Freeman). The problem with many of these films is that they relies too much on the charms of the cast instead of working on a great script.

The Last Laugh stars two senior legends Chevy Chase and Richard Dreyfuss as two old geezers who decide to travel America, chasing their former dreams instead of wasting away in an old folks’ home.  So in this particular sub-genre, where does The Last Laugh fit into the hierarchy?

The following review will be spoiler free.

Directed By: Greg Pritikin

Written By: Greg Pritikin

Starring: Richard Dreyfuss , Chevy Chase, Kate Micucci, Andie McDowell, Chris Parnell , George Wallace with Lewis Black and Richard Kind

Al Hart (Chevy Chase) is a retired manager who spends most of his days falling asleep on his chair. His caring granddaughter Jeannie (Kate Micucci) implores him to move toward a retirement home, which Hart reluctantly agrees to do. When he arrives at this affluent retirement facility, he comes across a former client of his, Buddy Green (Richard Dreyfuss), who quit being a stand-up comedian 50 years ago in order to become a successful Beverly Hills podiatrist and family man. Green had left the business just when he was about to make his breakthrough performance on  The Ed Sullivan Show .

After they’ve had numerous confrontations with the mortality of old-age, as the tenants of the old folks’ home continuously decrease in numbers, Hart convinces Buddy to return to stand-up comedy. Together by car, the pair decide to drive through America, visiting numerous stand-up venues in which Buddy begins to slowly hone his craft again. Not unexpectedly, the trip does take a physical and mental toll on the men.

Along the way, Hart falls in love with an aging hippie, Doris (Andie McDowell), who inspires Hart through the use of an abundance of mind-altering substances, to have a more free-spirited perception on life. As with any road-trip movie, the journey is less about the supposed destination and more about self-exploration. A dramatic twist eventually unfolds itself which changes everything for both Hart and Buddy.

It’s Hard Watching Your Heroes Grow Old

Image via GeekTyrant

Richard Dreyfuss is a legend in the industry. From blockbusters to smaller films, leading roles to supporting, dramatic to comical roles, this man has done it all. It’s always a pleasure to see him in a role, no matter how small. I know everybody is praising Christian Bale’s performance as Dick Cheney in Vice but we shouldn’t forget about Dreyfuss’ deliciously menacing turn as Dick in W .

To be fair, his talents have been wasted in numerous supporting roles or average comedies. His last great, meaty performances actually came from television with  Madoff and Shots Fired . As such, it was nice to see him back on the screen even though his older appearance took some getting used to.

In the case of Chevy Chase, I’ve already gotten used to his double chin and bloated face throughout my viewing of Community . Even though he’s first-billed in the credits, this is clearly Dreyfuss’ show. Chase seemed to have subdued his usual wacky antics, however. This does give him the opportunity to give a more mature and nuanced performance.

Even though I’m happy seeing Dreyfuss in a leading role again, it’s not easy seeing one of your heroes grow so old. It’s all part of life. Nobody escapes it.

I had the same feeling watching Peter O’ Toole in Venus and Harry Dean Stanton in Lucky . At the same time, their aging appearance did add to themes of the film. Similar to those two movies, Dreyfuss does get the opportunity to show off his natural dramatic and comic chops. Most notably the scene in which he goes on stage again after all these many years. The subtle way in which he shows off his nervousness and tries to compose himself is something many aspiring actors could learn from. 

Unfortunately, even though The Last Laugh has similar themes of aging and mortality — though it’s far more lighthearted — it does not come close to reaching greatness.

The Screenplay

Image via Ready Steady Cut

I’ve dabbled quite a bit into the history of American stand-up comedy. My bookshelf is stacked with the biographies of late great funny people, such as Richard Pryor or Rodney Dangerfield. It’s clear that Pritikin shares my love for the old days of stand-up comedy.  The Last Laugh  is filled with references to late great comedians which will escape many young viewers.

The significance on making your great TV debut on The Tonight Show will certainly be lost to many viewers. Times have changed. Your TV appearances matter but so does your social media presence. The Last Laugh works as a loving ode to the old days of American stand-up comedy.

However, the film is a little less successful on the character front. The screenplay simply doesn’t take enough chances . It doesn’t delve deep enough into the existential anguish of the characters. Considering their fears and doubts about growing old and impending death, the film plays it relatively safe and never swims over to the deep end.

It’s not that I expected an Alexander Payne film here in terms of depth, but I do feel there was more with which to work. Seeing how long these men have been in the business and haven’t had a major film role in years, this film needed to push them just a little further. It all feels a little too safe.

Some Odd Directing Choices

Writer/director Greg Pritikin. Image via Variety.

Pritikin also makes a few odd choices as a director. One of them being the outdated score, which makes The Last Laugh  sometimes sound like a fluffy 90’s film.

But most significantly is the drug-induced sequence in which one character imagines characters singing. Notwithstanding of the fact that most of the subjects that are singing cannot sing to save their lives, or how it is accompanied by tedious green screen effects, it just goes on far too long.

It’s funny at first for how far it goes, especially seeing how much the narrative has been straightforward to that point, but the joke becomes old rather quickly .

The Character of Doris Montgomery

Image via Netflix

Undoubtedly, the worst part of the movie is the character of Doris Montgomery. This is absolutely not Andie McDowell’s fault, who has proven time and again that she’s a capable actress (as anyone deserves to call themselves after working with Robert Altman ). But her character nearly reaches the epitome of bad female character writing.

She’s simply there to give Chevy Chase something more to do. Since Dreyfuss has got his stand-up comedy pathos going on, Chase was given a love interest.

Now there’s nothing wrong with a love-interest if she/he is well-written or if the characters had any chemistry. As you can already guess, The Last Laugh fails on delivering on both essential components.

There’s just no reason for Doris to fall for Al. It just happens because the screenplay needed them to. Their physical differences wouldn’t matter, even though McDowell has aged far more gracefully than Chase has, if they had chemistry. (Case in point, Paul Giamatti and Virginia Madsen in Sideways .) But their scenes together, while tolerable, does wear the film down. You’re just waiting for Dreyfuss and Chase to pair up again so that the film can get good again.

Doris also represents the tired cliché of the free-spirited female who needs to rescue the old bore from his uptight rut. We’ve seen this so many times before. Again this would be forgivable if she were better written.

To put it bluntly: Andie McDowell deserves better.

Final Thoughts

It’s nice seeing Richard Dreyfuss and Chevy Chase in a movie again even though the film won’t likely be remembered as one of their classics . The film is unfortunately riddled with clichés, most notably the female romantic interest who’s just there to give one of the main characters something to do.

The film does ride that fine line between humor and some light drama. The film never becomes too schmaltzy and the humor mostly works. The film also ends on a perfect comic and dramatic beat.

The Last Laugh also has a surprisingly nuanced and mature performance by Chevy Chase, and reminds us of the greatness of Richard Dreyfuss. Considering the talent and subject matter, it should be great, but instead it becomes a welcoming, if underwhelming return.

Still, fans of both these two legends, and of the stand-up comedy history in general, should go see it.

image via NOLA.com

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Chris van Dijk

A thirty-something writer currently living in Poland. One day he dreams about writing, directing, and starring in his own movie. In order to stop it from becoming a snoozefest, he's planning to fill the screen with excessive nudity and gore. And chainsaw duels. Why not? Chris loves high-art cinema and pure unadulterated schlock. He can talk just as much about the brilliance of Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries as he can about Miami Connection. When he's not writing for MovieBabble, he's working on his own stories. These stories star a host of dysfunctional characters that in no way resemble his own fractured psyche. He hopes everyone will be good to each other. He rightly believes dogs are superior to humans, and that all dogs will go to heaven.

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Nice review. I am also a big fan of Dreyfuss. But there aren’t a lot of good roles for older actors.

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The Last Laugh (2020)

The marketing blurb for The Last Laugh sells the film as “ Suspiria meets Scream “.  A bold claim if ever there was one, and whilst it has slasher elements that some could link to the latter and, in a stretch, mild giallo vibes that could be reminiscent of the former (though the Dario Argento classic and the Luca Guadagnino remake are infinitely better films), this film doesn’t deserve such a distinction.

Whilst the film could never live up to such an expectation, and suggesting so immediately puts The Last Laugh at a disadvantage, on its own merits it’s decidedly average, which is even more disappointing when you can see glimpses of the interesting horror film it clearly could be.  Writer/director Jeremy Berg ( Holiday Hell , The Invoking ) wants to create a sense of tension by housing the majority of his carnage in a theatre, and because the film’s lead character – a supposedly funny comedian (Steve Vanderzee’s Myles) – adopts such a sense of urgency in this gig going so well (the film opens on a rather unsuccessful routine), one would assume these ingredients would mesh together in a manner that creates rigidity throughout.

The thing is, we don’t really care about Myles, and none of the side characters make an impression beyond “I wonder if they’ll die next”, and even then the death sequences afforded to each bit player don’t exactly take advantage of the setting; one early on moment involving a knife through the throat at least momentarily indulges itself in that “bad 1980’s horror movie” type of way.

With each character slowly being offed and Myles ultimately being the only witness to each murder, it’s in Berg’s treatment of the mystery surrounding each death and Myles’ deteriorating state of mind that The Last Laugh offers a glimpse of the movie it could be.  It’s suggested from the off that Myles is suffering depression of some sort, popping pills in the aftermath of an accident that claimed the life of a loved one.  But it’s with his ceasing of popping said pills that he hopes to find clarity and, perhaps, attack his inner demons head on.  And if there are no other witnesses and a decreasing amount of suspects, is Myles manifesting The Last Laugh ‘s masked killer in his own depraved way?

Whilst the film’s evident low budget perhaps restricted certain luxuries the genre can benefit from, it certainly can’t be denied that Berg makes the most of his limitations, it’s just a shame it wasn’t in a tighter film.  Much of The Last Laugh is treated like a dialogue-heavy drama regarding Myles’ career, with the kill sequences seemingly thrown in to maintain interest for an audience likely to be disappointed with the film’s lack of horror direction.  And as much as I appreciate an ambiguous ending, Berg’s script really wants to throw its audience for a loop with a suggestively intelligent conclusion that isn’t really earned from the minutes prior.

The Last Laugh is available for purchase or rent through digital platforms in the US now.  An Australian release date is still to be determined.

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“The Last Laugh” (1924)

The Last Laugh

The Last Laugh is a terrific example of German expressionism , a film that depicts the horrors of modern humanity without necessarily being a “horror film.” A few more notes on The Last Laugh :

• Directing – F.W. Murnau , one of the founders of expressionism, uses all the hallmarks of the movement (distorted camera angles, magnified sets, exaggerated actors, unusual depth of focus, etc.) to depict the raw emotional angst of our main character. And despite the total lack of title cards (save for one), the story is easy to follow on a literal, emotional and psychological level 100 years after its release — truly pushing the boundaries of cinematic storytelling in an era when the artform was still in its infancy.
• Acting – The great Emil Jannings gives a larger-than-life performance as the unnamed hotel doorman. Typical of expressionism, he amplifies his actions to show his character’s inner fears and turmoil. We share in the doorman’s depression, and we relish in his eventual triumph, all thanks to Jannings’ vivid emotions.
• Writing – The Last Laugh boldly tells its story without title cards, instead preferring to let Murnau’s dreamlike imagery do the talking. Then again, the lone title card — in which an alternate ending is presented — is a stroke of genius from Austrian screenwriter Carl Mayer (who pulled off a similar feat in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ). The film admits that its doom and gloom is too much for the audience, and so a more optimistic conclusion is manufactured.
• Music – The Last Laugh is a silent film, but that doesn’t mean sound is insignificant. Giuseppe Becce’s orchestral score — which contains shades of the great Alban Berg — works hand in hand with Murnau’s visuals to tell the story without dialogue, giving us a dreamlike experience that is quite unique in cinematic history.
• Ending (SPOILERS) – Our once-proud doorman has been demoted and disgraced, and the film’s lone title card implies that, in “actual life,” suicide is his only option. But in the life of the film, the author takes pity on him (and the viewers) and provides an improbable epilogue in which the doorman receives a large inheritance and becomes a well-to-do guest of the hotel he once served. Even though the film acknowledges its own fictionality (another nice modernist touch from Murnau/Mayer), seeing Jannings’ doorman receive a happy ending is acceptably uplifting and well-deserved and a touching reminder that German expressionism doesn’t always have to be bleak.
• Quote: “Here our story should end, for in actual life the forlorn old man would have little to look forward to but death.”
• Accolades: Colin’s Review Best Films of the 1920s

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The Classic Film That Alfred Hitchcock Called "Almost Perfect"

Game recognized game, even back in 1924.

The Big Picture

• Alfred Hitchcock considered F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh to be a nearly perfect film that had a tremendous influence on his career.
• The Last Laugh used innovative camerawork and minimal intertitles to tell its story, relying on imagery to convey emotions and plot.
• The film features a surprising, comedic twist ending that may be unrealistic, but provided the spiritual uplift that its contemporary audience needed.

“Almost perfect” is about the highest praise you can get coming from someone who made more masterpieces than there are days in the week , and for Alfred Hitchcock , that praise was bestowed upon the film he claims he learned the most from : German expressionist F.W. Murnau ’s The Last Laugh . Nearing its centennial, The Last Laugh was released in 1924 and proved a pioneering tour de force of filmic storytelling, with cinematography that revolutionized the very concept of character-based narratives and championed themes that endure today while also offering a window into the past. But what exactly did the master of suspense find so fascinating about what’s arguably the Nosferatu -director’s masterwork, and how did it go on to influence his overwhelmingly prolific career?

Let’s get one thing straight: while The Last Laugh may have been described by Hitchcock himself as “the only external formative influence” on his career, it has little to do with Hitchcock’s own genre preferences . The director came across the film when working as an assistant on The Blackguard , which was next door to Murnau’s own production, becoming fascinated by the old master’s innovation. The film was known at the time as belonging to the Kammerspielfilm genre, which translates to “chamber drama.” That doesn’t mean that films of the genre all take place in one room , but that its focus remains on psychological character-based action rather than the intricate set designs of, say, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (which was also co-written by The Last Laugh ’s own Carl Mayer ). These films typically focused on the working class and tackled themes reflective of the common plights of ordinary moviegoers, which makes sense when you consider that in 1924 Germany, there were plenty of plights to be portrayed.

The Last Laugh (1924)

An aging doorman is forced to face the scorn of his friends, neighbors and society after being fired from his prestigious job at a luxurious hotel.

What Is ‘The Last Laugh’ About?

About four or five things happen in all of The Last Laugh , but every frame in between is completely devoted to watching our protagonist’s world fall out from under him. The plot itself is rather simple: an aging hotel doorman loses his job as a result of his increasing frailty, prompting a personal crisis as his social standing is eviscerated as a result. The doorman ( Emil Jannings , who accomplished a slight achievement in the form of the first Academy Award ever ), is demoted to a washroom attendant and tries to maintain appearances through stealing back his prestigious uniform, only to be discovered as a liar and cast out. The most remarkable thing about this drama, however: there are no words!

Even the most physical of the era’s silent American comedies, like Harold Lloyd ’s Safety Last! or the pre-sound films of Charlie Chaplin , heavily relied on intertitles to convey their stories, even getting a few gags out of them as well ( Safety Last! in particular tricks you into thinking you’re watching a man on death row before discovering that it’s just Harold going to the big city). Why, 1921’s The Phantom Carriage is so narratively dense that you could turn those intertitles into their own novella. Murnau, however, was only interested in showing, not telling!

How 'The Last Laugh' Influenced Alfred Hitchcock

While there are a couple of moments in which characters read letters that offer crucial bits of plot info, there is but one single intertitle in The Last Laugh , separating the film’s epilogue from its body. In the words of Hitchcock, it was the reason he adored it so: “ The Last Laugh was almost the perfect film. It told its story even without subtitles – from beginning to end entirely by the use of imagery, and that had a tremendous influence on me.” You can see that influence directly in the very opening sequence of Rear Window , which, like The Last Laugh , frames characters in between frames to both characterize them and box them in, expressing a sense of claustrophobia or separation from society for our poor old protagonist.

Equally influential was the “unchained” camera technique that Murnau pioneered. Of course, 'unchained camera' is just a more poetic way of expressing what is today known as a dolly shot, but at a time when cinematic technology was comparatively primitive, The Last Laugh ’s accomplishments in camerawork are nothing short of magic. With no words to describe a character’s emotions, Murnau settled for a camera crash zooming ( paging Mr. Wright ) into a disheveled old man’s face to tell us everything we need to know about his world falling out from under him. Hitchcock would later push this and pioneer his own techniques, such as the “vertigo effect,” but if he were alive today he’d be the first to tell you that it all started here.

‘The Last Laugh’ Features a Bizarrely Comedic Ending

Spoilers ahead for this hundred-year-old gem : The Last Laugh may not have been the first film to feature a twist ending , but even though it’s far from a horror film, it’s surprise epilogue still has the capacity to shock . The main body of the film comes to an end after the former doorman, too ashamed to go back home, spends the night in the lavatories of the hotel he works in. We are then given the first instance of intertitles within the film that reads like a confession: “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.”

We’re spun back into the high-society hotel as its residents feast on caviar and champagne, with news spreading about an eccentric millionaire (aptly named A.G. Money) who died in the arms of a washroom attendant, his will specifically stating that all of his possessions be inherited by the person whose arms he dies in. Sure enough, our favorite disgraced doorman got lucky and landed himself the fortune of a lifetime. Its joy is on par with the ending of It’s a Wonderful Life , as the now stupendously rich former doorman surveys his former working grounds like a king, tipping every server and bellhop that so much as looks at him. The preceding text insists that this ending is incredibly unrealistic, almost apologizing as it plays against expectations by acknowledging the author’s pity , but given Germany’s postwar inflation and the then-current rise of the Nazi party, this forced happy ending is the spiritual uplift its contemporary audience needed.

The Last Laugh is a masterpiece for many reasons, least of all because Hitchcock is a fan, but watching Murnau break the boundaries of what he thought was possible at the time at such a young age is sure to have influenced the iconoclastic director to do the same . Beyond framing his subjects so that his visuals are able to tell stories that his dialogue can’t (at least not as interestingly), there’s a boldness to both Hitchcock and Murnau’s work that allows them to tell tightly constructed stories through which they experiment , not by breaking the medium, but testing it.

The Last Laugh is available to stream for free on Kanopy.

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Movie Review – The Last Laugh (2019)

January 12, 2019 by Shaun Munro

The Last Laugh , 2019.

Directed by Greg Pritikin. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Chevy Chase, Andie MacDowell, Lewis Black, Kate Micucci and Chris Parnell.

When retired talent manager Al Hart is reunited with his first client, Buddy Green, a comic who quit show business 50 years ago, he convinces Buddy to escape their retirement community and hit the road for a cross-country comedy tour.

The beginning of the year is always a quiet period for new releases beyond the usual 2018 stragglers, and with these cold winter months making a trip to the cinema less-than-inviting, even the most unambitious Netflix offering can seem mightily appealing. As such,  The Last Laugh  certainly doesn’t reinvent the old man road movie, but it is a comforting, warm blanket of a film which lives and dies on the charms of its two aged stars.

In the hope of scratching an existential itch, retired manager to the stars Al Hart (Chevy Chase) sets off on a road trip with his former client Buddy Green (Richard Dreyfuss), a talented stand-up comic who ditched his career 50 years ago in order to start a family and become a podiatrist. Hoping to rekindle Green’s career while proving his own vitality in the process, Al embarks with Buddy on a comedy tour from California to New York, with each inevitably learning much about themselves – and, yes, each other – in the process.

As if it wasn’t obvious enough already, there’s absolutely nothing in this one-last-hurrah dramedy you haven’t seen before; the over-the-hill old coots want to prove to themselves that they’ve still got it and that time hasn’t quite run out for them yet, and that’s exactly what happens. It hits all the predictable, manufactured beats you’d expect without anything approaching subversion or originality, but thanks to rock solid work at the forefront, it just about adds up to a moderately enjoyable sit.

If you’re fans of Chase and Dreyfuss, the easy appeal of these screen legends riffing off one another for 98 minutes speaks for itself. Yes, the jokes never really leave the “aren’t these guys old and horny?” comfort zone, but rather than sleepwalk their way to an easy paycheck, both actors do feel sufficiently committed to director Greg Pritikin’s down-the-line script. Dreyfuss in particular lends a better-than-the-material-deserves poignancy to Buddy’s belated last waltz on the comedy circuit, selling the more solemn moments with palpable gravitas even when the tone occasionally jars.

The supporting cast is meanwhile talented albeit utilised to a mixed degree; Kate Mucucci proves mildly diverting as Al’s peppy granddaughter Jeannie and Lewis Black gets a few amusing scenes as a jobbing comedian, though Andie MacDowell’s inclusion in the movie’s second half as Al’s arbitrary love interest feels rather needless. It’s not that McDowell turns in bad work, but her romance with Al too often overshadows the more appealing two-hander between the focal old fogies.

Technicals are completely unfussy as is the usual mode for Netflix comedies, for despite some visually impressive second-unit scenic shots – which look extra-splendid in 4K – scenes are generally overlit into oblivion and a garish digital sheen is often present. The third act decides to get more ambitious by throwing goofy CGI effects into the mix during a shroom-induced trip sequence, and the end result is clearly compromised by the obvious budgetary constraints.

If you’re craving anything more than cotton candy Hallmark humanism,  The Last Laugh doesn’t really cut it, but if you’re in the mood for an agreeably familiar, middle-brow road movie, it does just enough to land a passing grade. Fundamentally generic old codger froth, yet elevated by Richard Dreyfuss’ endearing performance.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Shaun Munro – Follow me on  Twitter  for more film rambling.

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The Last Laugh [1924] Review – A Visually Ingenious Character-Driven Drama

F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh (Der letzte Mann, 1924) is widely known as the first film to employ dolly shots, and for taking the camera on flights of imagination in such a spectacular and unprecedented manner. While cameras have panned and tracked before The Last Laugh, never before the aesthetics were deliberately designed to emphasize on the character’s subjectivity. All the ground-breaking camera techniques conceived here were taken over by mainstream cinema and became the foundation for more innovation. Furthermore, this mature German Expressionist cinema made a daring move by dispensing with the dialogue intertitles. Though hailed as a significant silent film of the era, some of The Last Laugh’s elements haven’t fascinated modern viewers: especially, Emil Jannings’ dramatization of the central doorman character’s frustration and humiliation. Once regarded as a colossal performance, Jannings is now accused of hamming it up even for the silent-cinema standards.

Yet I have always felt that there are graceful notes in his performance despite the overly dramatized postures. People also express their distaste for a man who invests his whole identity in a uniform. And they find it troubling that the allegedly emasculated individual derives an overbearing sense of pride while totally ignoring his class position. Hence compared to The Last Laugh, Murnau’s proto-horror Nosferatu (1922) and his spellbinding American debut Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) possess the power to instantly enchant the contemporary audiences.

Yet it is important to understand Last Laugh’s dramatic (or melodramatic) elements and its emotional universe as much as heralding the movie’s innovative, dynamic cinematography. As German film critic Lotte H. Eisner wrote, “The Last Laugh can only be understood in a country where uniform is King, not to say God. A non-German mind will have difficulty in comprehending all its tragic implications” [1]. Roger Ebert in his adulatory review of the movie writes, “Perhaps the doorman’s total identification with his job, his position, his uniform, and his image helps foreshadow the rise of the Nazi Party; once he puts on his uniform, the doorman is no longer an individual but a slavishly loyal instrument of a larger organization. And when he takes the uniform off, he ceases to exist, even in his own eyes” [2].

Related to The Last Laugh: The Phantom Carriage [1921] Review – A Startlingly Inventive Morality Play of the Silent Film Era

Written by Carl Mayer who also co-wrote the seminal The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) , The Last Laugh is seen as a contemplation of Weimar-era anxieties and the period’s fixation on authority. In the Criterion essay, the film is described as ‘a peculiarly German warning against the decline of benign authority’ , and further stating that ‘Murnau located terror in the countryside for Nosferatu ; with The Last Laugh , he places it in the city, its reflective surfaces generating a frenzied kaleidoscope’ [3]. Film scholars have also acknowledged Mayer for combining expressionism with the Kammerspielfilm – the cinematic portrait of lower-middle-class which supposedly influenced Italian neo-realism . The concept of Kammerspiel was first established in 1906 in the theatre world by the legendary stage director Max Reinhardt (who was also Murnau’s mentor).

The intention of the marriage between Kammespielfilm and Expressionism is to focus on the humanistic aspects of the narrative rather than obsessing over the twisted psychological states. In The Last Laugh, Carl Mayer and Murnau do distort the subjective reality for emotional effect. Yet they bring a humanist eye to observe the grim predicament of the elderly hotel doorman. The moving camera and minimized intertitles were already part of Kammerspiel film. In 1923, Mayer wrote ‘Sylvester’, in which the action progressed by visual means. Nevertheless, The Last Laugh is considered as the pinnacle of the experimentation that successfully combined expressionism and realism.

The Last Laugh opens at the opulent Hotel Atlantic, a paradise for the city’s wealthy population fitted with glazed revolving doors, elevators, banquets, and grand ballrooms. Standing at the entryway of this paradise is the hotel’s unnamed aging and burly doorman (Emil Jannings). Clad in antiquated, gold-buttoned uniform and sporting ridiculously long sideburns, the doorman’s stance is comparable to the vanity and exuberance of a military general. The daring mobile camera shots in the opening frames are simply exhilarating to watch, especially when the doorman moves between hotel and the curb, guiding the guests in and out of the cabs with skittering bellboys waiting for his command. The ‘Senses of Cinema’ article states, “The rhythm of the scene is set by the constant spinning of a glass revolving door that separates the chaos of the outside elements from the glittering and efficient atmosphere of the hotel lobby” [4].

A dent to the doorman’s sense of self-worth and identity occurs when he tires himself while trying to lift an enormous trunk from the top of a cab in the rainy night. The hotel manager witnesses the overbearing doorman’s fatigue. The elderly man lives nearby in a lower-class neighborhood, the dingy apartment balconies are full of middle-aged women beating dust out of the carpets. Keeping up with expressionist aesthetics, the city’s skyline was designed through matte paintings and other practical effects. The social boundaries are clearly delineated and starkly opposite. Nevertheless, the elderly doorman, despite the weariness, walks straight and proud once entering the neighborhood courtyard. Subsequently, the apartment-dwellers give him a cordial welcome as if he is a visiting dignitary. He derives great pleasure for being respected for his shiny uniform, and bestows them with a salute.

Soon, the doorman learns that he is demoted due to his old age and banished to the hotel’s basement lavatory. The biggest blow is that his self-worth and pride is stripped off alongside his uniform which is now replaced with a dirty, white coat. Murnau and his cinematographer Karl Freund poignantly observes the man’s humiliation, particularly in the moment he is forced to remove his uniform and when a button falls into the floor. As the old man staggers towards his neighborhood, he feels that his reality is collapsing. In one extraordinary shot, we see the old man imagining that the hotel building is falling upon him. Later in the night, he gets drunk at his daughter’s wedding and starts dreaming of exceptionally doing his job which includes balancing a huge trunk on one hand.

In the phenomenal dream sequence, Murnau and Freund fully exploit the possibilities of tracking shots, high-angle shots, panning, and superimpositions. The Expressionism witnessed here is more evolved and mature than the shadow-play of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Nosferatu. Another intriguing Expressionistic device is employed when the news of doorman’s demotion passes across the neighborhood. The cruelty of the gossiping women’s disregard is shown through enormous laughing mouths which instantly tears down the man’s inflated self-image. The play with the beams of the hotel night watchman’s torch is another memorable visual detail. In the scene, the doorman-turned-lavatory-attendant crawls on the ceramic floor, Murnau treats his subject as being unjustly ostracized to hell. The narrative ends with the haunting shot of the elderly man slumped over in the lavatory, resigned himself to his fate.

Also Read: Mr. Thank You [1936] – A Bittersweet and Deeply Humane Road Movie Classic

What follows is an intertitle, announcing: “Here the film was supposed to end. In real life the unhappy old man would hardly have something other than to expect death. But the screenwriter took pity on him and added a somewhat improbable epilogue.” In this epilogue, the old man is now a millionaire, by sheer coincidence. The happy ending was of course requested by production executives to boost the film’s economic potential (the film’s original title was also changed from ‘The Last Man’ to ‘The Last Laugh’ ). But the absurd scenario of the epilogue and the cynicism injected into it (by Murnau and Mayer) ably calls into question our own fixation with the happy ending.

The enduring classic status of The Last Laugh was made possible because of the involvement of highly qualified group of professionals: from director Murnau, scenarist Mayer, cinematographer Karl Freund, actor Emil Jannings to producer Erich Pommer, art directors Walter Rohrig, Robert Herlth, and production designer Edgar G. Ulmer. Like Murnau & Jannings, Freund and Ulmer immigrated to Hollywood in the dawn of sound cinema and were part of quite a few prestigious projects. Eventually, The Last Laugh (90 minutes) may tell a very simple story of a man’s disempowerment, but the distinct way the story is told, solely relying on the tools of the medium, elevates it to a greater art. Murnau’s emphatic triumph with Last Laugh influenced generations of film-makers, including the future ‘Master of Suspense’ who left his native Britain for Weimar Germany in 1924 and 1925 to just watch the Expressionist masters at work.

• F.W. Murnau, Lotte H. Eisner, Shadow Books, June 1 1973.
• Roger Ebert, The Last Laugh review: Great Movie , rogerebert.com, March 05, 2000.
• Alyssa Katz , Criterion, April 19, 1994.
• Der Letzte Mann, Rahul Hamid , Senses of Cinema, July 2004.

The Last Laugh Links: IMDb , Rotten Tomatoes

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Arun Kumar is an ardent cinebuff, who likes to analyze movie to its minute detail. He believes in the transformative power and shared-dream experience of cinema.

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‘It’s Only Life After All’ Review: Indigo Girls Laugh Last

The director Alexandria Bombach benefited from the musician Amy Ray’s archivist instincts in this warm, compelling new documentary.

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By Elisabeth Vincentelli

Indigo Girls have been going strong for over 40 years now, and maybe the key to their resilience is that they never were cool. Often, they got it worse: Even at their commercial peak in the 1980s and ’90s, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers were routinely mocked for being too earnest, too poetic, too folky, too lesbian. Back then, being labeled a female, gay singer-songwriter was an artistic and commercial curse, as Ray recalls in “It’s Only Life After All,” a smart, compelling new documentary.

The director, Alexandria Bombach, greatly benefited from Ray’s archivist instincts: The musician has held on to decades’ worth of artifacts and opened up her vault — 1981 rehearsals, recorded on cassette when Ray and Saliers were in their teens, are startlingly crisp documents of a budding chemistry, for example.

From this clay Bombach has sculpted an affecting portrait of two women who have stuck to their beliefs and, just as important, their loyalty to each other. Existing fans will be mesmerized, but non-fans like me should also get a kick out of “It’s Only Life After All.” The film is especially good about contextualizing the band’s emergence in the midst of condescension (at best) from the mainstream media — their dramatic, and very funny, reading of a withering 1989 review in The New York Times is a highlight — along with their personal struggles and steadfast political engagement for causes, including the Indigenous-led organization Honor the Earth.

Now that the band is experiencing a cultural moment — its hit “Closer to Fine” was prominently featured in “Barbie,” and an indie jukebox musical movie set to their songs, “Glitter & Doom,” came out last month — it is delightful to see them have the last laugh.

It’s Only Life After All Not rated. Running time: 2 hours 3 minutes. In theaters.

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The Last Laugh Reviews

Director Pearlstein makes it easy on us to decide by making the film both hilarious and thought-provoking.

Full Review | Apr 28, 2020

Renee Firestone, a Holocaust survivor now 93-years-old, captures the essence of The Last Laugh, Pearlstein's documentary on the humor coming out of the horror during World War II.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 16, 2019

The Last Laugh doesn't have many answers. But the questions it raises are worth their own sake.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Dec 27, 2018

The Last Laugh is thought provoking in its analysis of both the cultural identity of the Jewish people and the anatomy of a joke.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 1, 2018

Pearlstein asks the big questions, and sometimes the answer is a tear, sometimes a laugh, and always profound.

Full Review | Feb 3, 2018

What upends The Last Laugh is that the scenes with Firestone, which take up a good percentage of the screen time, follow the template of scores, if not hundreds, of Holocaust-survivor documentaries.

Full Review | Nov 20, 2017

An eye opener in every sense

In its own way, "The Last Laugh" is a celebration of Jewish humor, not just its importance as a survival technique, but also just how much it has shaped our culture.

Is laughter a palliative? The only weapon of the powerless? Perhaps significantly, the film ends in tears.

What makes The Last Laugh different from so many other Holocaust documentaries is that it is the first to explore the comedic perspective.

Full Review | Nov 10, 2017

Ferne Pearlstein does well to keep the questions coming and the conversation a rich one, presenting to a wide audience the kind of kibitzing that has characterized Jewish comics.

Full Review | Aug 15, 2017

When it floats away from its star talent, The Last Laugh becomes a viciously humane work, on a journey as vigorous as any contemplated by D.A. Pennebaker and his sort.

Full Review | May 9, 2017

Part of the film's charm is in its reluctance to sit on one side of the fence, and it instead acknowledges the plurality of experiences and interpretations.

Full Review | Original Score: Recommended | Apr 1, 2017

At a time when many of us look to comedy to keep us sane, the question is especially pertinent, although the answers here aren't especially penetrating.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Mar 24, 2017

Sit down with The Last Laugh and have the last laugh over those who committed horrors in the past, are doing so now, and will in future.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Mar 23, 2017

At times haphazard but always involving ...

Full Review | Mar 16, 2017

Intriguing in that it lays out the case that we can now make jokes about the Holocaust and lets the viewers decide for themselves whether they've made the point.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Mar 13, 2017

It remains an enlightening conversation. And the movie is that: a conversation, not a thesis erecting an argument.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 10, 2017

The Last Laugh is a multifaceted and extremely thought-provoking documentary about the place of comedy in contending with the Jewish genocide during WWII.

Full Review | Original Score: 8.3/10 | Mar 9, 2017

A Jew walks into a comedy club. Is it OK for her to tell a joke about the six million who died? Can she, as Gilbert Gottfried asks, put the "Hah!" in Holocaust? This is the topic of a fascinating new documentary by Ferne Pearlstein.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 9, 2017

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The Last Laugh

• Episode aired Feb 24, 2024

The future is really hot, and worse, everybody's too cranky to appreciate Zeph's humor. The team goes back in time to discover a surprising source of the laughter-killing-heat: Doc Crock's r... Read all The future is really hot, and worse, everybody's too cranky to appreciate Zeph's humor. The team goes back in time to discover a surprising source of the laughter-killing-heat: Doc Crock's restaurant? The future is really hot, and worse, everybody's too cranky to appreciate Zeph's humor. The team goes back in time to discover a surprising source of the laughter-killing-heat: Doc Crock's restaurant?

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