Elizabeth, it was nice to see your photos today. I am glad you had a chance to do some photography, and wow, that is quite a landscape up there in Northern Minnesota. I guess Canada would be on the other side of the water? You have a lot more courage than I would have, to get as close to the edge as you do, lol, but you got some great shots of the falls as a result, and the the colors of the trees seem to stretch on forever. Have a blast on your travels and keep shooting, and posting too if you want. I was happy to have had the chance to do a few hikes and photos on my recent days off, especially at the Simi Indian Caves. Now I am back at Pearl's until Thanksgiving week, but I'll keep posting stuff too, as often as I can. :)
Well, tonight I am very impressed by Lon Chaney. A couple of nights ago I wrote about his performance in "The Unknown", and I mentioned that I had never seen an entire Lon Chaney movie until then. Now I've seen two more: "The Ace Of Hearts", which I saw last night but didn't get around to reviewing because of my attention toward "First Man", and "Laugh, Clown, Laugh", which I watched tonight and thought was a masterpiece.
I went from never having seen a Lon Chaney movie to seeing three in the past four days, and I think I can say for sure that he is one of the greatest actors I have ever seen. You'd have to watch his performances for yourself to see what I mean, but if you did I think you'd agree, especially if you saw him as "Tito" in "Laugh, Clown, Laugh", a Pagliacci story of two clowns in Italy who have a traveling act that they take to local halls. One day by the side of the road, Tito finds a small child, a girl of about three, who has been abandoned. His partner wants to leave her there for the church to take care of, but Tito says that God would want them to take her, as they are the ones who have found her. Tito names her "Simonetta" and adopts her as his own. Years pass and she is now a teenager, played by Loretta Young, who was only 15 at the time. Tito has trained Simonetta as a tightrope artist and she is part of the act.
But now that she is becoming a young woman, Tito is experiencing different feelings for her. She was not his biological daughter and he is falling in love, though he keeps his feelings to himself. Meanwhile, Simonetta has gone out one day to pick roses for her hair, on the property of a resident Count. The Count, a tall, handsome gent with total Silent movie star looks, sees her and offers his help, instantly enamored with Simonetta.
This begins the setup. Two men are in love with young Simonetta. One is Tito, the man who raised her, not as a father but as a professional circus clown. He trained her in what he knew and she has been successful. Therefore, his secret love is not portrayed as incestuous or creepy, but rather as something he keeps to himself as a gentleman, but that has little chance of fulfillment, especially because the younger Count Ravelli is also in love with Simonetta. Ravelli is dashing and extroverted; he lavishes gifts upon her and makes no secret of his intent to marry the young beauty.
Simonetta has had an unusual effect upon the two men. Tito the clown cannot stop crying because he loves her and cannot show it. Count Ravelli cannot stop laughing because he loves her too, and feels no need to hide it. He is overcome with joy while Tito is overcome with sadness.
Both men wind up in the office of a psychiatrist, and there they meet for the first time.
"Laugh, Clown, Laugh" is an incredibly moving story with a performance by Lon Chaney that must have set a standard or at least a very high bar for dramatic actors in the last years of the Silent era. You can't take your eyes off of him. Loretta Young was a natural for her role as Simonetta, she was exceptionally beautiful, and Chaney was able to play off of her youth and innocence. He works himself up into several states of emotion, his face is a map of what he feels from moment to moment. When you see the more subtle facial expressions on the great screen actors of today, this is where those techniques came from. I read an internet article this evening that referred to Lon Chaney as "the first great actor", and I cannot disagree. I think he's one of the greatest actors ever, as i said last night, and if you want to see for yourself, watch "Laugh, Clown Laugh", which is a masterpiece of the Silent era.
You can also watch Cheney in "The Unknown", which I reviewed a couple nights ago, or in "The Ace Of Hearts", a very unusual murder mystery involving a secret society of which Chaney is a member. I did not have time to review that film, but it is also a 10/10, with Lon Chaney playing another entirely different type of character, as he did in all three of the films I have now seen. If there was ever a guy with infinite range who could not be typecast, it was Lon Chaney.
I will be looking for more of his films, and I highly recommend all three of the ones I have mentioned from The Lon Chaney Collection that I got from the libe.
"The Unknown", "The Ace Of Hearts" and "Laugh, Clown, Laugh".
All three of these films are as good as movies can get. Two Huge Thumbs Up for each.
See you in the morning. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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