Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
As professional clowns Tito (Lon Chaney) and Simon (Bernard Siegel) are traveling, they happen upon an abandoned child, whom they take in and name Simonetta (Loretta Young). When Simonetta is older, she becomes a circus performer herself. One day she is looking for roses, and climbs into the garden of Count Luigi Ravelli (Nils Asther). The count becomes infatuated with her, but she leaves as soon as possible. Sometime later, Ravelli consults a doctor about his fits of uncontrollable laughter, and there he meets Tito, who has come to seek help for his fits of uncontrollable weeping. The two decide to help each other, and they establish a friendship, but problems arise when they realize that they are both in love with Simonetta - Actors:
- Lon Chaney, Bernard Siegel, Loretta Young, Cissy Fitzgerald, Nils Asther, Gwen Lee, Robert Brower, Julie DeValora, Helena Dime, Leo Feodoroff, Frankie Genardi, Lilliana Genardi, Betsy Ann Hisle, Emmett King, Carl M. Leviness, Mickey McBan, Evelyn Mills, Fay Webb
- Directors:
- Herbert Brenon
- Producers:
- Herbert Brenon, Irving Thalberg
- Writers:
- David Belasco, Tom Cushing, Joseph Farnham, Elizabeth Meehan
- Aka:
- Smej se, Bajaco
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Romance
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Reviews (1) of Laugh, Clown, Laugh
Silent Melodrama - Laugh, Clown, Laugh review by Steve
One of Lon Chaney’s last films before his death in 1930. He’s mainly remembered now for horror roles, but was versatile and this wild romantic melodrama is quintessential. He plays a popular clown who raises a foundling that grows up to be Loretta Young; and a tightrope walker in his stage act.
And he tenderly, wretchedly falls in love with her. But she is attracted to a handsome aristocrat (Nils Asther). So will it end in tragedy for the sad clown? This is not the sort of picture which can be made now. It exists within the sentimental and mysterious principles of silent melodrama.
The casting of a 15 year old female romantic lead wasn’t unusual in its time. Loretta is indeed very young to be the love interest of two older men. She plays an archetype of the Victorian stage, a virtuous waif. But she has a luminous star quality on screen and is persuasively, dreamily melancholic.
This is the kind of film where a doctor will prescribe true love because the Count has a sickness which makes him neurotically laugh… And the same cure for the clown’s tears. There is no realism; it’s a vehicle for Lon’s harlequin makeup and the pathos of his unrequited infatuation. But for fans of silent melodrama, this is a knockout.