Laugh, Clown, Laugh

Tito is a travelling clown. On the road he finds an abandoned little girl, raises her and names her Simonetta. Years pass, she grows up, and Tito cannot say to himself what it is he feels for her. Around the same time he meets Count Luigi, who has a strange affliction: fits of laughter he cannot stop. Tito, for his part, cannot laugh. The two set about helping each other. Then the count falls in love with Simonetta, and the thing Tito could not say becomes still less sayable. Herbert Brenon directs the silent film; seventy-four minutes, with Lon Chaney as Tito. Loretta Young, playing Simonetta, was fifteen, and it was her first substantial part. Chaney was among the best-known actors of the silent era, and here the face under the clown paint does at least as much work as the costume.