Ridi, Pagliacci!

I've been a die-hard Lonaholic since the early 70's, but only managed to see this in a terrible 16MM bootleg print over 30 years ago, and then a fragmentary view when it was shown on TCM. Watching this DVD now has given me a whole new perspective on how great a silent picture can be, and on why I fell for Chaney as well.

The story, while it apparently bears the stamp post-Victorian melodrama, is also very complex and has sexual undercurrents that are surprisingly modern. It portrays emotions that are so primal, and portrays them so well, that its dated elements don't prevent it from feeling current and emotionally valid.

The acting is top notch. The deep and conflicting feelings that are a component of any of the three sides of a love triangle are brilliantly, subtly portrayed by all the principals. Fourteen year-old Loretta Young is perfectly cast as the girl who is becoming a woman, with her experiences always ahead of her understanding.

You can really see in LCL why Lon Chaney was considered the actor's actor of his day. He's superb; his Tito Beppi is an irresistible combination of simplicity and depth. At first I thought Chaney was hamming a bit, but ultimately it contributes to the impact of his portrayal of Tito's honest and profoundly compassionate character. The few seconds when Beppi realizes that his fatherly love for Simonetta--whom he has raised since she was a child--has suddenly veered into desire, ought to be taught in acting classes. That Chaney was capable of portraying so many strong, and subtle, deeply personal emotions, without a single word, goes a long way towards explaining the powerful grip his on screen charisma had on audiences of the Twenties.

James Wong Howe's photography is stunning. He was famous for having been able to get Mary Miles Minter's pale blue eyes to register on orthochromatic film; LCL shows how he brought that same testimonial to the richness of black and white to the more realistic palette of panchromatic stock.

The DVD's presentation is excellent. The new musical score really enhances the film without calling attention to itself. Its quiet urgency contributes to the sense of inevitable tragedy without ever veering into clichéd dramatics. I think this print of Laugh Clown Laugh is the only one surviving; there are some small continuity hiccups from lost footage but it doesn't detract.

Anyone who is or has been in love should see this film; it's hard not to identify with elements of the plights of all three protagonists. Put this on a double bill with City Lights and it's liable to kill you.

Regards, Richard Day Gore

Lon Chaney is Tito Beppi, an Italian clown better known to his audiences as "Flik", in this Herbert Brenon directed film. Tito and his partner, Simon (Bernard Siegel), or "Flok", have a traveling two-man circus act. Tito finds an apparently abandoned young girl near a river and decides to adopt her. Simon objects, but Tito butters him up slightly by announcing that he'll name her Simonetta.

We quickly move forward in time, and Simonetta is now a young woman, played by Loretta Young, who was only 14 at the time of shooting. She's now skilled at tightrope walking, so Tito wants to work her into the act. On their promoter's advice, they try to make Simonetta look womanlier. They fix her hair and she heads out to a well-known spot where roses grow to acquire one as a coiffure accoutrement. It happens to be on Count Luigi Ravelli's (Nils Asther) property. The Count sees her and immediately falls in love. Tito has come to realize that he's in love with Simonetta, too, and thus the film is about the dilemmas of a morally and socially complex love triangle.

Like many films from the earlier years of Hollywood, Laugh, Clown, Laugh is an instantiation of a story that had a circuitous route to the silver screen. The script, by Elizabeth Meehan, with titles by Joseph Farnham, was adapted from a 1923 play by David Belasco and Tom Cushing, which was itself a version of an earlier (1919) Italian play--Ridi, Pagliacci--by Fausto Martini, which was very loosely based on Ruggiero Leoncavallo's 1892 opera Pagliacci. Films such as this are handy to keep in mind, by the way, whenever you want to counter someone complaining that only newer films rely so heavily on adapting stories from other media. Not that there is anything wrong with this, despite some saying it shows a "lack of originality" or "paucity of ideas" (fueled by them believing it's a new phenomenon). Laugh, Clown, Laugh has a nicely focused, parable-like script that works well despite the fact that all we have available now is a version of the film with a section missing. In fact, it's so well constructed that I couldn't even detect the missing section--I wasn't aware of it until I listened to the DVD commentary by Lon Chaney biographer Michael F. Blake.

This is the second time Chaney played a clown, the first being He Who Gets Slapped (1924). We might have expected Chaney to tackle a clown even earlier in his career given his notoriety for transformative makeup designs. He does a fantastic job in the role, as we'd expect. It's especially amazing to watch his ability to turn on a dime as he adjusts his depressive backstage persona (especially in the later sections of the film) to the happy-go-lucky Flik for the benefit of the audience on the other side of the curtain.

Laugh, Clown, Laugh incorporates compelling and even controversial themes, subtexts and direct content. Two scenes are relatively racy for the late 1920s, including one that builds up to a bit of foot fetish material and another containing a kiss with incestual subtexts--it's important to remember that this was an era when some states would not even allow films that showed a woman's bare leg or shoulder. The ending is somewhat nihilistic and surprisingly tragic.

On one level, the film is largely about social and dramatic contrasts. Tito and Simon are successful and popular when they perform, but they are almost gypsy-like, spartan itinerants. Like many comedians, Tito's public persona is joyous and exuberant, but behind the scenes he's not quite so happy. The love triangle involves both a man who is incredibly wealthy and in the upper niches of society and a man who is well liked but not wealthy and who is considered on lower or outside social rungs. There is a fabulous scene where both men head to a "neurologist" (more a psychologist) because one is suffering from mania characterized by uncontrollable laughter and the other is suffering from depression characterized by outbursts of crying--it's a personification of the comedy/tragedy masks. And of course, the film itself appears to be a comedy for much of its length, but ends up as a tragedy.

At the same time, Laugh, Clown, Laugh is a morality play. Tito ends up falling in love with his much younger, functionally adopted daughter. That's controversial material for the era--it's still controversial even now. Like many Chaney films, the climax hinges on the moral quandaries suggested by this love triangle and Chaney's difficult decisions.

While Laugh, Clown, Laugh is a quality film, it wasn't a complete artistic success in my view. I watched it on Turner Classic Movies' "Archives" Lon Chaney Collection disc, which also contains The Ace of Hearts (1921), which I just watched yesterday and preferred. The story here never quite captivated me in the way that Ace of Hearts did. The new score, by H. Scott Salinas, was also good (although maybe a bit too literal to the action at times for my tastes), but didn't match the sublime, sustained beauty of Vivek Maddala's Ace of Hearts score. Laugh, Clown, Laugh is well loved by many Chaney fans, though, and by some accounts, this was one of his favorite roles. Chaney's performance, at least, deserved a 10 even if the film overall wasn't up to the same degree of excellence.

Certainly the tale of the clown who's laughing on the outside, but crying on the inside, is not a new one. But in this version, Lon Chaney makes it his own through the force of his heart rending characterization.

The story of a clown who falls in love with the little girl he's raised as his daughter stops shy of being incestuous because the clown Tito, (Lon Chaney) tries to hide his feelings from the girl, Simonetta.(Played by a very young and exquisite Loretta Young.) Realizing that it's inappropriate,Tito always holds himself in check, but Simonetta is aware because she knows him so well. His realization that Simonetta is now a young lady, and no longer a child is one of the most touching scenes in the movie.The depth of his feeling for her speaks to the anguish of his inner soul, and produces emotional problems for which he seeks the help of a famous internist. The opposite side of the coin is played with aplomb by Nils Asther, whose emotional affliction is uncontrollable laughing,whereas Tito's is crying. Both men's salvation lies in the love they share for Simonetta.

While this is overall a sad movie, there are moments of lightness as well, especially when Tito is performing as Flik on the stage, and when he's trying to get Simonetta to laugh. Bernard Siegel gives fine support as Tito's partner Simon, who performs in the act as Flok.

By the end of the movie, you'll understand the pathos of Simon aka Flok saying, "Laugh, clown, laugh even though your heart is breaking."

Not only is this the greatest performance I've seen by Chaney, it is one of the great films.

In this, Chaney definitively proves he is one of the greatest actors, perhaps the greatest, in all of film. Although he appears in different make-ups in almost every scene, the make-up is to portray himself as a younger man who slowly grows older as the 25-year span of the film tells the well-known tragic love story more familiarly known as "Pagliacci," the clown who could not laugh.

The film co-stars a radiant 14-year-old Loretta Young, who Chaney supposedly guided to another great performance. Without the director, who was unduly harsh on her, knowing it. When Chaney found out, he made sure he was always with Young whenever the director was. Young's mistreatment ended.

Several times I was near tears because Chaney's performance--watch his eyes, hands and demeanor--is so naturalistic, even though somewhat melodramatic, as all silent performances were.

Almost all of Chaney's films were about unrequieted love, but here he may have reached his apotheosis. I won't know until I see a few more of his non "horror" films, especially, "He Who Gets Slapped."

Don't let what I've said make you think this is some clunky "tear-jerker," It is filled with good laughs, drama, wonder and real pathos. Chaney's final scene is utterly tragic and beautiful.

Even non-Chaney fans will be awed by "Laugh, Clown, Laugh."

...the Pagliacci story has become a keystone of American popular culture, all the way from Enrico Caruso's Metropolitan Opera performances in the Leoncavallo classic (his various recordings of "Vesti la Giubba" combined to sell over a million copies according to the Guinness Book of World Records) through to the Smokey Robinson & The Miracles hit record "Tears of a Clown." This Lon Chaney movie was once a primary link in that chain, but because it was considered "lost" for many years (before a British release print with two reels missing was found towards the end of the century) it was forgotten. Now that it's available on DVD with a beautiful H. Scott Salinas musical score worthy of Morricone, as well as a scholarly audio commentary by Michael F. Blake, it deserves to be restored to its former status as one of the greatest American films of the silent era...