The Last Laugh (1924)

The Last Laugh is a timeless classic of film history: the story of a hotel porter who is demoted to a toilet attendant in his old age, and whose humiliation destroys him, as he feels he has lost the meaning of his life along with his splendid uniform. The legendary director, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau—along with his equally talented collaborators, screenwriter Carl Mayer, cinematographer Karl Freund, and lead actor Emil Jannings—brings the heartbreaking story to life exclusively through images and editing, without any text inserts. The bustling hotel life, the old porter's drunken scene, the montage of gossiping women, the contrast between the gray suburbs and the hotel's glittering building come to life in unforgettable sequences, which we can now watch accompanied by the improvisation of the Váczi Dániel Glissonic Trio on the Open-Air Stage of the House of Music.