thumb|Der letzte Mann (1924) by F. W. Murnau, full movie The Last Laugh (, ) is a 1924 German silent film directed by German director F. W. Murnau from a screenplay written by Carl Mayer. The film stars Emil Jannings and Maly Delschaft. thumb|338x338px|Emil Jannings as the Hotel Doorman Stephen Brockmann summarized the film's plot as, "a nameless hotel doorman loses his job".Prager, Brad. A critical history of German film. Monatshefte, Volume 103, No. 3 (Fall 2011), pp. 472-474; (p.473) It is a cinematic example of the Kammerspielfilm or "chamber-drama" genre, which follows the style of short, sparse plays of lower middle-class life that emphasized the psychology of the characters rather than the sets and action. The genre tried to avoid the intertitles (title cards) of spoken dialogue or description that characterize most silent films, in the belief that the visuals themselves should carry most of the meaning.
thumb|Der letzte Mann (1924) by F. W. Murnau full movie The Last Laugh (, ) is a 1924 German silent film directed by German director F. W. Murnau from a screenplay written by Carl Mayer. The film stars Emil Jannings and Maly Delschaft. thumb|338x338px|Emil Jannings as the Hotel Doorman Stephen Brockmann summarized the film's plot as, "a nameless hotel doorman loses his job".Prager, Brad. A critical history of German film. Monatshefte, Volume 103, No. 3 (Fall 2011), pp. 472-474; (p.473) It is a cinematic example of the Kammerspielfilm or "chamber-drama" genre, which follows the style of short, sparse plays of lower middle-class life that emphasized the psychology of the characters rather than the sets and action. The genre tried to avoid the intertitles (title cards) of spoken dialogue or description that characterize most silent films, in the belief that the visuals themselves should carry most of the meaning.