The Man Who Laughs

This is about as bad as a German expressionistic horror classic (from 1928) - oddly remade by one of the best spaghetti western directors - could be. Under Sergio Corbucci's surprisingly confused and unfocused eye Victor Hugo's macabre romance is shifted from England under King James II to 16th-century Italy. Jean Sorel is the man whose face has been tortured into a hideous fixed grin who becomes court assassin for effete Edmund Purdom's Cesare Borgia. Lisa Gastoni plays Lucrezia in a typically overblown product of its era - chintzy costumes, third-rate acting, over-operatic score and all badly dubbed into a pointless travesty.