to acquire film rights to the Hugo novel from the French studio Société Générale des Films. Chaney's contract was amended, releasing him from The Man Who Laughs, but permitting him to name the replacement film, ultimately resulting in the 1925 The Phantom of the Opera. After the success of Phantom, studio chief Carl Laemmle returned to The Man Who Laughs for Universal's next Gothic film "super-production". Laemmle selected two fellow expatriate Germans for the project. Director Paul Leni had been hired by Universal following his internationally acclaimed Waxworks, and had already proven himself to the company with The Cat and the Canary. Countryman Conrad Veidt was cast in the Gwynplaine role that was previously intended for Chaney. Veidt had worked with Leni for Waxworks and several other German films, and was well known for his role as Cesare in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. American actress Mary Philbin, who had played Christine Daaé opposite Chaney in Phantom, was cast as Dea. Leni was provided with a skilled crew. Charles D. Hall was chosen to design the sets. He had previously adapted Ben Carré's stage sets to film for Phantom and had worked with Leni for The Cat and the Canary. Jack Pierce became the head makeup artist at Universal in 1926, and was responsible for crafting Gwynplaine's appearance. During the sequence where Gwynplaine is presented to the House of Lords, the extras were so moved by Veidt's performance that they burst into applause. Universal put over $1,000,000 into The Man Who Laughs, an extremely high budget for an American film of the time. Music and sound The Man Who Laughs was originally released as a silent film with dialogue rendered through intertitles, and projected with musical accompaniment which would vary by venue. The phenomenal success of 1927's The Jazz Singer, the first commercially successful sound film, heralded the demise of the silent era. By May the next year, virtually every Hollywood studio was licensed by Western Electric's newly created marketing subsidiary, Electrical Research Products, Incorporated, to use Western Electric equipment with the Movietone sound-on-film recording system. Technologically superior to the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system used by The Jazz Singer, Movietone enabled image and sound to be recorded simultaneously in the same (photographic) medium, ensuring their precise and automatic synchronization. Universal used Movietone to provide The Man Who Laughs a monophonic score with occasional synchronized sounds including bells, knocks, and trumpets. The