Gwynplaine

[p4poetic]

Just liked to share b/c I found it interesting, in particular the end of the article piece. Actually, more disturbing but interesting none the less?

http://www.darkromance.com/dr-bod/dr-bod-vol_1_02/dr-bod-020718-sardonicus-joker.html

The Lasting Influence of The Man Who Laughs
The most well known of many creative references in popular culture to Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs is found in Batman's nemesis The Joker.

The character's co-creator, Bob Kane, described in a 1970 interview how a photo of Conrad Veidt's Gwynplaine was an early influence on The Joker's appearance.

Like Gwynplaine, The Joker is also the victim of a horrid disfigurement, though the comic book character's face is changed by an accident in which he is immersed in a vat of chemicals, bleaching his skin and discoloring his hair. Unlike Gwynplaine, who is a truly heartbreaking victim with an origin born of a stark, historical reality that leaves him somwhat reclusive, The Joker is a sociopathic serial-killer with a psychotic sense of morbid showmanship.

James Ellroy also invoked the image of Gwynplaine in his novel The Black Dahlia as a clue to revealing the motive behind one of the victim's many grotesque wounds.

A gothic horror tale entitled 'Sardonicus' appeared in a 1961 edition of Playboy and was turned into a low-budget horror film by William Castle, the director of The Tingler, The House on Haunted Hill and 13 Ghosts. Titled Mr. Sardonicus, the film told the story of a man who is cursed with 'risus sardonicus,' a locked spasm of the facial muscles, upon the sight of his father's corpse during a moonlit graverobbing.