Laugh, Clown, Laugh

Laugh, Clown, Laugh
Directed by	Herbert Brenon
Written by	Joseph Farnham Elizabeth Meehan
Starring	Lon Chaney Bernard Siegel Loretta Young Cissy Fitzgerald Nils Asther
Cinematography	James Wong Howe
Editing by	Marie Halvey
Distributed by	MGM Jury-Metro-Goldwyn(England)
Release date(s)	April 14, 1928
Country	United States
Language	Silent film English intertitles

Laugh, Clown, Laugh is a 1928 silent film starring Lon Chaney and Loretta Young. The movie was directed by Herbert Brenon and produced and released through MGM Studios.

Cast

• Lon Chaney - Tito/Flick
• Loretta Young - Simonetta
• Nils Asther - Count Luigi Ravelli
• Bernard Siegel - Simon
• Cissy Fitzgerald - Giacinta
• Gwen Lee - Lucretia

Plot

Tito (Lon Chaney, Sr.), a traveling circus clown, finds an abandoned child (uncredited). Tito adopts her and raises her as his daughter, naming her Simonetta after his partner Simon (Bernard Siegel). One day Simonetta (Loretta Young) encounters Luigi (Nils Asther), a wealthy man who falls madly in love with her, but she rejects him. She returns home to the circus and Tito suddenly realizes she is no longer a child. Tito further realizes he has feelings for Simonetta, but also knows his feelings are improper because he raised her as his daughter.

Luigi begins having fits of uncontrollable laughter because Simonetta has rejected him. Tito falls into melancholy because he believes he should not have Simonetta as a love interest. They both see the same doctor about their conditions and meet for the first time. They share their respective troubles and believe they can help each other, not knowing they both love the same woman. Nonetheless, the three eventually develop a strong friendship until Luigi asks Simonetta to marry him. Simonetta eventually accepts Luigi's proposal, which throws Tito into an even deeper melancholy. Simonetta learns of Tito's affections for her before she marries Luigi. She tells Tito she loved him before she loved Luigi, then goes to break her engagement with Luigi.

While Simonetta is breaking her engagement, Tito and Simon begin rehearsing some new material for their Flik and Flok act. Tito does not believe Simonetta's love is genuine, but that it is just pity. He becomes emotionally hysterical, and falls from the highwire while practicing a familiar stunt.

There are two endings. In one, Tito dies from his fall, freeing Simonetta to marry Luigi. In the alternate, Tito survives his fall and Simonetta marries Luigi, and they all remain close friends.

Notes

The film is based on the 1923 Broadway stage production Laugh, Clown, Laugh that starred Lionel Barrymore and his second wife Irene Fenwick (in the Loretta Young role). The play, based on a story Ridi, pagliaccio by Faurto Martini, ran at the Belasco Theatre from November 28, 1923 to March 1924, for a total of 133 performances.

The film survives in an incomplete print, but the missing footage does not critically affect the storyline. The surviving print seems to end rather abruptly, as the last few seconds of the fadeout are among the lost footage. The alternate happy ending, shot at the studio's insistence, has also been lost.

MGM delayed production of this film several years, because Chaney had already appeared as a clown character in the 1924 film He Who Gets Slapped and speculation that Lionel Barrymore might reprise his role from the stage production. (As a substitute MGM would pair Barrymore with Chaney in West of Zanzibar) As a trouping comic stage actor in his youth, Chaney would have been acquainted with clown performers of lesser-known fame. In preparation for this film and He Who Gets Slapped Chaney also studied the clown makeup of circus performers and legendary 19th-century clown stage actors like Joseph Grimaldi and George L. Fox the latter of Humpty Dumpty fame.

A musical theme written specially for the film (called "Laugh, Clown, Laugh") became a huge popular hit. Chaney's set musicians played the song at his 1930 funeral.

This was Loretta Young's first major movie role, at the age of fourteen. In interviews near the end of her life, she remembered her gratitude towards Chaney for his kindness and guidance, and for protecting her from director Brenon's sometimes harsh treatment.

2002 re-score, 2003 release

In January 2002, the third annual Young Film Composers Competition sponsored by Turner Classic Movies (which is owned by Turner Broadcasting System - the Time Warner subsidiary that also owns MGM's pre-1986 films through Turner Entertainment) began. One of the entrants was a college student named Scott Salinas, and he won. In November 2002, he scored it at TODD-AO digitally recorded which the film first aired in February 2003 and at the same time, a promo showing Scott Salinas' experience composing the score for Laugh, Clown, Laugh.

External links

• Laugh, Clown, Laugh at the Internet Movie Database
• Laugh, Clown, Laugh at AllRovi
• lantern slide to Laugh, Clown, Laugh