Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)

Directed by Herbert Brenon. Starring Lon Chaney, Loretta Young, Nils Asther, Bernard Siegel.

Unseemly melodrama unsuccessfully strains for tragic depths. Chaney is always effective when suffering from unrequited love, but even his own character recognizes that this is one example of stirrings best left alone. He plays a circus clown (unseemly, remember?) who comes across a foundling and raises it as his own, and years later when she reaches pubescence (now played by fourteen-year-old Young), he discovers that he has developed romantic feelings toward her, while her own attention has turned to a wealthy count (Asther) who has become smitten with her as well. No amount of pathos on Chaney’s part can save the dated texture and structural simplicity of the story (based on a David Belasco/Tom Cushing play), and the grand gestures are disabled by the sort of extravagant trappings that would come with calliope accompaniment if they weren’t housed inside a silent film. One of the final lines is borrowed from fellow “clownish tragedy,” Pagliacci.

50/100