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Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)

By 1928, both Lon Chaney and the silent era were fast approaching the end of their lives. In two years, both The Man of a Thousand Faces and the form of film that gave birth to cinema would be gone, passing the baton to another generation and to the future of cinema. With Chaney starring alongside debutant Loretta Young, Laugh, Clown, Laugh - through its narrative and timing in film history - feels like a baton-passing.

It isn’t Chaney’s finest film and doesn’t reach the heights of The Phantom of the Opera, but it is a prime example of how Chaney could elevate a film with a plot resembling B-melodrama into affecting tragedy. Chaney was near the end of his life, but at the height of his popularity and talents just as a fifteen-year old Loretta Young would just begin a long career in Hollywood. The film is notable for Young’s debut, but Chaney’s years of experience are the emotional and moral centerpiece of an overachieving film - I use, “overachieving” with great admiration and sincerity here. It is incredible to watch Chaney adjust from his energetic on-stage persona to the omnipresent depression that define’s his character’s behavior away from the stage. Having grown up with both his parents being deaf-mutes, Chaney mastered pantomime and that is why his performances were always at such a high level of mastery.

The elder Chaney plays Tito, a travelling circus clown who finds an abandoned child (the grown-up version of the child played by Young) and names her Simonetta, after his partner Simon (Bernard Siegel). Simonetta grows up as part of Tito’s and Simon’s act and is told by a wealthy man named Luigi (Nils Asther) that he is in love with her. She refuses - confused, inexperienced in matters such as this. She returns home to Tito and Simon that night as Tito realizes the little Simonetta is no longer the abandoned child, but a blossoming woman. And - hold on to your big red noses - Tito realizes he loves Simonetta as well. But he realizes the indecency if his feelings were known and hides what he wishes to say to her away.

Luigi and Tito meet each other later at the doctor’s office - the former is there due to his indulgent lifestyle making him laugh uncontrollably and the latter is there because of a crippling melancholy. The doctor suggests that the two help each other and they do so - without knowing that they are soon to become romantic rivals. Despite this conflict, any hostilities that would arise because of mutual jealousy are brief as Tito allows Luigi to ask Simonetta for her hand first. She agrees, but breaks off soon after out of fears of hurting Tito. She goes to Tito, professes her love for her, but Tito doesn’t believe her words to him genuine and becomes hysterical.

In this hysteria, Tito needlessly rehearses a familiar high-wire stunt of balancing on his head, upside-down. He crashes - this scene is frightening for a silent film - and dies in Simon’s arms.

If this all sounds rather familiar, it is for those well-versed in opera. The film is based off of Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci - which might have started the, “sad clown” trope.

As stated previously, the performances are excellent even if the film-making isn’t up to snuff. The editing could have been crisper (silent films have a tendency to overdo long cuts) and the cinematography by a young James Wong Howe is an indication of even more effective uses of shadow and deep-focus.

Behind the scenes, Loretta Young was excoriated and verbally abused by director Herbert Brenon - this, unfortunately, was widespread behavior for directors for decades to come. When Young was accompanied by Chaney on the set, Brenon was less hostile to his leading lady and Chaney noted this change of behavior quickly. After this realization, Chaney never left Young’s side even on days where he wasn’t needed on the set. In interviews near the end of her life, Young would reflect upon her friendship with Chaney on the set of Laugh, Clown, Laugh:

I shall be beholden to that sensitive, sweet man until I die.

Just at the beginning of his life, Chaney would soon have to resort to pantomime and sign language as he was diagnosed with bronchial cancer - a tragic ending reminiscent of many of his films. Chaney died in 1930, two years after the film’s release.

The most complete print today only has a few seconds of the final fade to black missing, making the end abrupter than it should be, but at least large swathes of the film aren’t missing. However, Brenon shot the film with a happy and a sad ending. Theater owners were then given their choice of what ending that wished to screen. Tellingly, Americans preferred happier endings while Europeans preferred more tragic ones. Only the tragic ending exists as the happy ending is considered lost.

On one last note regarding prints, there is a print provided by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) with a score by H. Scott Salinas, commissioned by the channel after winning its Young Film Composers Competition. Otherwise, musical scores will vary.

It’s best to end this review with a quote delivered by Simon (in title cards):

Laugh, clown, laugh… even though your heart is breaking!

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down.