Here’s this week’s Hidden Treasures. Enjoy!

The Last Laugh (1924)
The Last Laugh, a 1924 silent film from German director F.W. Murnau, is the heartbreaking story of a hotel doorman who loses the only thing he holds dear: his job. The doorman of the Atlantic Hotel (Emil Jannings) takes great pride in his work, and always does his best to see that the hotel’s guests are treated properly. When the Hotel Manager (Hans Unterkircher) decides the Doorman’s too old to continue at his present position, he reassigns him to the basement, where he’s to function as the hotel’s new washroom attendant. Shocked by this turn of events, the former doorman struggles to maintain his dignity, and must do his best to cope with a position of much less importance. The Last Laugh is a rarity in that it doesn’t rely on title cards to further its story (title cards were traditionally used in silent films as a means of expressing dialogue or bringing the viewer up to speed with what was happening on screen). It was Murnau’s assertion that his film, so powerful emotionally, didn’t need title cards. Everything that the viewer required to follow the story was right there on the screen, from Murnau’s sharp direction to Emil Jannings’ deep, soulful eyes. No words, either spoken or written, could have possibly communicated this film’s intentions any better. Through total silence, The Last Laugh’s message rang out loud and clear.

All The Real Girls (2003)
It’s nighttime. A boy and girl are standing outside, locked in an embrace, and talking to one another. She says she likes talking with him because she can say exactly what’s on her mind. He asks what’s on her mind. She, in turn, asks why he’s never kissed her. He says it’s because he really likes her, and therefore doesn’t want this relationship to be like all the others. She lightheartedly suggests that he kiss the palm of her hand. That would make this ‘first kiss’ different from the others, wouldn’t it? This opening shot from director David Gordon Green’s All the Real Girls runs for nearly four minutes, never once cutting away from its initial framing. The camera remains perfectly still, focusing entirely on the young lovers, resulting in a scene that is not only very romantic, but also very genuine. The boy is Paul (Paul Schneider), a young man in his early twenties who floats through life in his small southern town, and the girl is Noel (Zooey Deschanel), who has just returned home from boarding school. Before meeting Noel, Paul had been a bit of a wolf, sleeping with many girls in town, but he feels that Noel is special, and different from the others. However, when Noel goes on a weekend getaway with some friends, it leads to an event that forces Paul to reflect not only on his relationship with Noel, but the insensitivity he himself exhibited in his past. All the Real Girls flows smoothly, almost effortlessly, and as a result, not a single moment from the film hits a false note. Each character, conversation and relationship seems as real as they come.

Pit and The Pendulum (1961)
No actor was better suited for Edgar Allen Poe than Vincent Price. He embodied both the gentle sophistication and deep-seated despair that a Poe character demanded, and when it came to depicting a slow descent into madness, Price had no equal. In this Roger Corman-directed film, Price plays Don Nicholas Medina, who is stricken with grief at the recent death of his wife, Elizabeth (Barbara Steele). When the family’s physician tells Elizabeth’s brother, Francis Barnard (John Kerr) that his sister died of ‘shock’, Don Nicholas is forced to reveal the truth, and leads Barnard into a secret torture chamber hidden deep within his castle, a chamber that Elizabeth had grown obsessed with during her final days. Director Corman brought a great style to his Poe adaptations (which included films such as House of Usher and The Masque of the Red Death), constructing an atmosphere of foreboding doom by way of elegant period costumes and sinister set pieces. Showing a flair for color and an understanding of what it is that makes people squirm, Corman breathed new life into the great writer’s chilling compositions, with Vincent Price mixing in the proper dose of the macabre for good measure.