LAUGH, CLOWN, LAUGH
Starring Lon Chaney and Loretta Young
MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE
July 1928
This suffers severely by comparison with the stage version, and especially Lon Chaney's performance seems inadequate after Lionel Barrymore's. In fact, the picture was interesting to me only when Nils Asther was on the screen. He is awfully handsome and seems to have matured a good deal in appearance and behavior since "Sorrell and Son." The story is of two men, one afflicted with uncontrollable laughter, the other with weeping, who become friends to cure each other. They love the same girl. Like all girls, she chooses the best-looking one, and in this case you certainly can't blame her. The collapse of Tito, the clown, while standing on his head on a tight rope, is hardly as impressive and tragic as the mad scene which Barrymore played so grandly on the stage. The girl is Loretta Young, who looks and acts in the Early Betty Bronson manner. The whole thing seems to be good screen material gone wrong.