Full Disclosure, I couldn’t actually watch this movie, I tried but the trailer told me everything I could ever need know about this version and then someone on IMDB gave the specifics.
The Who Laughs 1966 Poster
This version seems precious.
You can watch the trailer here, http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/466045/Man-Who-Laughs-The-Original-Trailer-.html
Where do I even start? What were the screenwriter and the director smoking with this movie? First, The Man who Laughs is not an Adventure Novel. Oh, that just brought a smile to my face.
I mean what is this movie? There is nothing of the novel to be seen in this trailer but my god is this not the best one minute and thirty nine seconds? I feel like the movie’s craziness just leeches off the screen.
Apparently someone did see it according to a post of IMDB and here some core differences, so SPOILERS;
-Dea’s mother didn’t die and travels around with Dea, Ursus and Gwynplaine. And here I thought they cut Ursus as he didn’t seem to be in the trailer. (This is a weird change but it seems harmless, misses a point but whatever.)
-Gwynplaine is the royal court executioner and not a mountebank. Though he says cool lines and such before he axes people. (But still why? It’s just No, that is stupid.)
-Gwynplaine and Josiana sleep together (That is BS but we’ll see this change again.)
-Apparently Barkilphedro and soldiers gang rape Dea. (That is just awful, F-U movie, you ruined it. You had this stupidity that was darling and now it’s all gone. I hate you.)
-Gwynplaine keeps his title and gets sugery to correct his deformity and Dea’s eyes get magically fix. (This movie should be destroyed!)
–source
Well it seems like this movie had some idea of a story they wanted to make, some Royal Court intrigue but they needed a source for characters so they attached the Man who Laughs. This movie seems like a Fan-Fiction.
If it wasn’t for the some BIG plot changes like Dea and the very stupid happy ending it would seem like hilariously naive version but it seems more waste of the original source material and I didn’t even like the original source material but this movie seems like crap-poo, no wonder you can’t watch it.
Also it takes place in Italy instead of England and it’s the Borgias. So wrong place and time. That doesn’t bother me, just saying. Though I did like the Showtime show of The Borgias.