Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau started collaborating with scriptwriter Thea von Harbou in 1921. Their first joint film was DER BRENNENDE ACKER (THE BURNING SOIL), 1921/22. It is a »drama of an ambitious man«, as the film is subtitled, depicting two contrary lifestyles, that of a traditional peasant and a worldly aristocrat. PHANTOM (1922), the next project, is about the unrequited love of a town clerk. The dramatic action develops from the opposition of petty bourgeois, proletarian narrowness and the cosmopolitan world of the rich. Thea von Harbou's script was based on Gerhart Hauptmann's novel of the same name.

After the peasant drama DIE AUSTREIBUNG (THE EXPULSION), 1923 and the comedy DIE FINANZEN DES GROSSHERZOGS (THE GRAND DUKE'S FINANCES), 1923/24, the UFA studios in Babelsberg started filming DER LETZTE MANN (THE LAST LAUGH) in May 1924. This film spurred the beginning of Murnau's international career. The story of a hotel doorman who is demoted to a washroom attendant was written by Carl Mayer, one of the most significant German-language screenwriters of the 1920s. It was the fourth of a total of seven collaborative efforts between Murnau and Mayer.

Murnau's crew for the filming of DER LETZTE MANN (THE LAST LAUGH) included cinematographer Karl Freund and production designers Robert Herlth and Walter Röhrig; the lead was played by Emil Jannings. The film was produced by Erich Pommer, who had been supporting Murnau ever since they worked together on SCHLOSS VOGELÖD (THE HAUNTED CASTLE) 1921. The shooting exhibits an incredible joy in experimentation; it is marked by footage shot with a moving, or »unchained«, camera. The film was critically acclaimed when previewed to the press in New York in early December 1924, three weeks before its world premiere in Berlin.

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