Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal saw the great German impressionist
movies of the 1910s and 1920s and decided Universal needed to have one of
its own, and he hired director Paul Leni to adapt Victor Hugo's The Man Who
Laughs, starring the magnificent German actor, Conrad Veidt, who had of
course starred in the first of these, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Apparently Laemmle panicked when he saw the advances, because Universal
devised one of the oddest ad campaigns from a major studio (maybe only
equaled by MGM's Freaks campaign a few years later).
The ad showed a sexy image of Olga Baclanova, with an unrecognizable back
shot of a man crouching before her, and the immortal tagline, "*Why do
alluring women love homely men?*"!
Bruce
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