The Last Laugh, based presumedly on Gogol's “The Cloak,” is a powerful study of the importance Germans attached to uniforms: an elderly and proud hotel doorman is demoted to a lavatory attendant; his uniform taken away from him, he is humiliated and taunted by relatives and neighbors who formerly respected him. But a happy and unlikely ending turns tragedy into comedy. Carl Mayer's script was developed in collaboration with actor Emil Jannings, director F.W. Murnau and cameraman Karl Freund, which led to the possibilities of exploiting the moving camera, and the final shooting script was re-written in terms of camera movements resulting in effects that were then very new. Writing in 1929 as a critic, Marcel Carne noted: “The camera on a trolley glides, rises, zooms, or weaves where the story takes it. It is no longer fixed, but takes part in the action and becomes a character in the drama.” Ideas are expressed through repeated symbolic images and angle shots, and Emil Jannings' performance makes use of gestures for expressionist effect - the narrative could unfold without intertitles.