Laughter
About Laughter
Peggy (Nancy Carroll), a former Ziegfeld performer, has married the older C. Morton Gibson (Frank Morgan) and is bored. She turns down her friend, the sculptor Ralph Le Saint (Glenn Anders). Pianist Paul Lockridge (Fredric March), back from Paris, asks her to leave with him for France. Gibson's daughter (Diane Ellis) arrives, and the choice gets harder.
Cast & crew
More about Laughter
Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast directed. Donald Ogden Stewart, Herman J. Mankiewicz, and Douglas Z. Doty wrote it. Monta Bell produced. George Folsey photographed it at Astoria. Helene Turner edited. Vernon Duke wrote the music. Paramount released it. The running time is 85 minutes. It is not an MGM picture.
Themes
Making
D'Arrast shot the comedy at Paramount's Astoria studio in New York rather than in Hollywood.
Look
George Folsey photographed the film at the Astoria Studios in New York.
Music
Vernon Duke wrote the music.
Preservation
A copy is preserved at the Library of Congress. The 1931 German-language version is considered lost.
Notes
- It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Story.
- The National Board of Review put it on a Top Ten list.
- Diane Ellis's last film. She died in December 1930, at 20, of an infection on her honeymoon in India.
- Fredric March later named it among his favorite of his own films and kept a print.
- A German-language version, The Men Around Lucy (1931), with Liane Haid and Lien Deyers, is considered lost.
- The Library of Congress holds a copy.
Awards
- National Board of Review Top Ten Films
Scenes
- Paul, just back from Paris, asks Peggy to leave Gibson and come to France.
- Gibson's daughter walks into the marriage Peggy is already tired of.
Influenced
- The Men Around Lucy (1931)