Laugh, Clown, Laugh was a 1928 silent film starring Lon Chaney and Loretta Young. The movie was directed by Herbert Brenon and produced and released through MGM Studios.
Notes
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. Chaney took pains to make the clown makeup between these films of different styles, with the Flik character in this film being portrayed in Grotesque Style, rather than the earlier character’s Neat Style.
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.
