Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)

After viewing lots of movies from the past year or so, I decided to go way back again, to one of the last years in which silents were not retro. This is actually the less advertised second half of a Lon Chaney collection disc featuring The Ace of Hearts, even though TAoH is significantly less popular. While both are short enough that I could have watched them together in one evening, I didn't feel like it.

I'm not sure whether LCL is set in the "present"; it feels even earlier to me. In it, Italian brothers Tito (Chaney) and Simon serve as a clown duo in a circus when they discover an abandoned girl toddler. Simon initially wants nothing to do with raising her, saying, "Women bring bad luck," but Tito sways him by calling her Simonetta. After a time skip, she is played by then-aptly named 15-year-old Loretta Young...and old enough to change both brothers' minds: Simon returns to his grumpy superstition, and Tito has gone from fatherly love to a crush. Also crushing on her is Count Luigi Ravelli. Both have nervous breakdowns -- Tito crying and Luigi laughing -- when they believe that Simonetta won't have them. They happen to meet at the same doctor's office and feel that a friendship will do them good...at least until the rivalry intensifies....

Yeah, it's a little disturbing how Tito's feelings change, but we're still made to pity him for not getting the girl, as usual for Chaney characters regardless of their morals. You may have guessed up front that the title is ironic; indeed, the words are followed in the intertitles by "even though your heart is breaking!" It calls to mind an article I read in the wake of Robin Williams, stating how humorists frequently have emotional issues and see little benefit from amusing others. BTW, I'm pretty sure that his dialogue with the doctor inspired Rorschach's sad "joke" in Watchmen. And no, the old-fashioned clowning never offers much comic relief to us.

No less disturbing to me is Simon's sexist attitude, going so far as to walk out on Simonetta and Tito the first time she seems grown up. What's worse, his fear predictably comes true for Tito, leading me to suspect the writers of similar sexism.

In spite of this ugliness, I mostly enjoyed the film for its tragic beauty. Perhaps well-crafted dialog and circus cinematography helped. Perhaps it takes a lot to turn me away from the visual talent of Lon Chaney.