Eureka Blu-ray Film Review

The Man Who Laughs (1928) • Blu-ray [Eureka! Masters of Cinema]

When a proud noble refuses to kiss the hand of the despotic King James in 1690, he is cruelly executed and his son surgically disfigured.

Finally, thanks to this superlative restoration on Blu-ray as part of Eureka Entertainment’s ‘Masters of Cinema’ collection, I get to see Paul Leni’s The Man Who Laughs. For a long time, all I knew about several classic silent films were snatches of their imagery. Some of my favourite film stills are from the silent age and a select few hang framed over my desk.

Many of these tantalising glimpses are from lost films or ones that were too decayed to be released. But, since the turn of the millennium, digital technologies have improved exponentially and it’s now possible for some of these rare movies to be rescued, restored, even reconstructed, and re-released. It’s always with a little trepidation that I seek them out, though, because sometimes they don’t live up to the expectations stoked by years of seeing those isolated images.