Laugh, Clown, Laugh
About Laugh, Clown, Laugh
Traveling clown Tito (Lon Chaney) finds an abandoned girl and raises her as Simonetta, named for his brother Simon (Bernard Siegel). Their act is Flik and Flok. Grown, Simonetta (Loretta Young) meets Count Luigi Ravelli (Nils Asther), rejects him when she learns he has a girlfriend, and goes back to the circus. Tito realizes he wants her and knows he should not. Luigi's laughter will not stop; Tito sinks into weeping. The same doctor puts them together, and neither man knows they love the same woman. Luigi proposes, and Simonetta accepts. She then learns what Tito feels, tells him she loved him first, and goes to break the engagement. Tito decides she only pities him. He rehearses the new high-wire routine with no protection, falls, and dies. Simonetta is left free to marry Luigi.
Cast & crew
More about Laugh, Clown, Laugh
Herbert Brenon directed for producer Irving G. Thalberg. Elizabeth Meehan wrote the screenplay and Joseph Farnham the titles, from the 1923 Belasco Theatre play by David Belasco and Tom Cushing, itself from Fausto Maria Martini's 1919 play Ridi, Pagliaccio. Cedric Gibbons designed the sets. Marie Halvey edited. Shooting ran from 19 December 1927 to 2 February 1928. MGM released it on 14 April 1928, and later in 1928 issued a version with a synchronized score and effects.
Themes
Background
It opened in April 1928, while MGM was still releasing silent dramas and also shipping some of them with synchronized tracks.
Making
Chaney plays Tito without the distorted body makeup of films like The Unknown. The tragic ending is the one that survives. The studio's happier ending, with Tito alive, was not kept.
Reviews
Photoplay called it Chaney's best work since The Unholy Three and said the Tito Flik characterization was perfect. Harrison's Reports wrote that the unprotected wire and the suicide were the most pathetic scenes and that the film should draw. The New York Times found Brenon's film dawdling, and wrote that even Chaney's earnest performance failed to stir the sympathy the story needed.
Look
James Wong Howe photographed it. Jon C. Mirsalis later called the photography the finest on a Chaney picture.
Music
Ted Fio Rito wrote the theme "Laugh, Clown, Laugh," with lyrics by Lewis and Young. It became a hit record. A second release in the latter half of 1928 carried a synchronized score and sound effects.
Preservation
The circulating print is missing reel 4. The alternate happy ending, in which Tito survives, no longer exists.
Notes
- Loretta Young was 14. This is her first film lead.
- She later said Chaney was kind to her and kept Brenon, who could be harsh with her, off her back.
- An alternate ending, in which Tito survives the fall and stays friends with the married couple, was shot because some theaters might want it. That footage is gone.
- The surviving picture is missing reel 4. The gap does not break the story.
- Cissy Fitzgerald plays Giacinta and Gwen Lee plays Lucretia.
- Ray Lissner was assistant director.
- The theme song was played at Chaney's funeral in 1930 by musicians from his sets.
Scenes
- Tito finds the abandoned child and names her Simonetta.
- The doctor pairs the weeping clown with the count who cannot stop laughing.
- Simonetta tells Tito she loved him before Luigi, and leaves to break the engagement.
- Tito goes up on the wire without protection and falls.
Influenced by
- David Belasco and Tom Cushing's play Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1923)
- Fausto Maria Martini's play Ridi, Pagliaccio (1919)
