FILM

THE LAST LAUGH
Dir: F W Murnau
UFA, 1924 (DVD, 2004)

Though F W Murnau's expressionist masterpiece The Last Laugh is entirely silent — there are not even title cards — star Emil Jannings manages to arouse as much pathos through gestures, facial expressions and posture as today's actors of equal status (Dustin Hoffman, Anthony Hopkins) could with all the dazzling dialogue in the world.

Mr Jannings plays the aging doorman at Berlin's swanky Atlantic Hotel. When the hotel manager notices him struggling to lift a heavy trunk down from a taxi, he returns to work the next day to find a younger man in his place.

The scene that follows in the manager's office is devastating. The manager hands him a letter explaining he's been demoted to toilet attendant and the old man nearly faints with the news. Without his militaristic greatcoat, he instantly hunches and seems to age about 20 years.

The Last Laugh fixes a jaundiced eye on the decadent and cruel world of 'Roaring Twenties' Berlin. Images of the insolent, wealthy young Berliners who frequent the hotel are set against scenes of our hero shuffling about in his new domain, ostracized by his family and neighbours.

Mr Murnau is probably best known today for his famously creepy 1922 vampire flick, Nosferatu. He lured Mr Jannings to the dark side in 1926's Faust, as the prince of darkness's faithful servant, Mephisto. Sadly, this later role was prophetic: Emil Jannings ended his distinguished career making Nazi propaganda films at Joseph Goebbels's invitation.

— Elliot Stone

You might also like: G W Pabst's Pandora's Box, starring Louise Brooks

BOOK

Lives of Girls and Women
Alice Munro
McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1971

Primarily known as one of Canada's best — if not the best — short fiction writers, Alice Munro's first novel is pure magic. The book Lives of Girls and Women is an intense foray into the life of an Ontario woman and is set in the picturesque and typical Canadian town of Jubilee, ON, during the 1940s. The novel encapsulates the awkward climb into adulthood and follows our heroine Del Jordan from childhood to womanhood. Many might interpret this novel as 'chick lit' — it's anything but.

Lives of Girls and Women gets to the essence of coming-of-age and touches on the vulnerability in us all. Ms Munro's characters are very real. They're raw, ambitious, curious and cruel.

The main character, Ms Jordan, has drive and gumption but is not without her own faults. Ms Jordan's journey takes us through some of the typical trials in life and she deals with them in a way most youngsters would; with fear and curiosity. Tragedy exists in the novel, but it doesn't overshadow the core of the tale — it just plays out as part of life. We deal with loss, love, excitement and disappointment and Ms Jordan, like most of us, rolls with the punches.

Lives of Girls and Women is worth the read. It offers insight and will bring you back to an earlier time in your life that may have seemed so innocent and makes you question whether it actually was.

— Carla Sparks

You might also like: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

POP

The Gilded Palace of Sin
The Flying Burrito Brothers
1969 A&M (Reissued on CD in 1994 by Edsel Records)

Country and rock 'n roll, combined — it must have seemed like a great idea at the time but who could have figured that this cross-pollination of the two styles would yield some of the slickest, dreariest, most cocaine-fueled and self-indulgent music of our time. But even bearing in mind the country rock pairings' worst seeds — the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt et al — the Flying Burrito Brothers' debut the Gilded Palace of Sin makes it all worth while.

The Burrito Brothers took the best of country music's lyrical wit, imagery and steel guitars and fused it with psychedelic rock. The two front men, Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons, were previously members of the Byrds, and they took that legendary group's trademark vocal harmonies with them. Mr Parsons liked to call their sound "cosmic American music."

The Gilded Palace of Sin is a fine set of songs combining familiar country themes such as moral transgression ("Sin City") and trust violated ("Christine's Tune") with contemporary politics ("Hippy Boy" is an old time recitation about the 1968 riots in Chicago, and "Dear Uncle" about an American boy burning his Vietnam draft card and heading to Vancouver).

Other gems include the bittersweet one-two punch of "Hot Burrito #1" and "Hot Burrito #2", the latter of which kicks off with the line: "Yes, you loved me but you sold my clothes." A more countrified lyric could hardly be imagined.

Unlike the commercially successful, artistically bankrupt country rockers who come later, the Burrito Brothers never came off as smug. And they laughed with, not at, their hillbilly forefathers.

— Abe Konigsberg

You might also like: Cowboy in Sweden by Lee Hazelwood

Calling all doctors! Do you have a classic film, CD or book that you love? Would you be interested in sharing it with your colleagues? If so, why not submit your review to the National Review of Medicine. Send your article to [email protected] and we'll send you a gift if we publish it.