For National Clown Day: A Survey of Sad Clown Cinema

It’s how we define kitsch, isn’t it? At least, it’s what I always think of to illustrate the concept: a painting of a sad clown on black velvet. It’s National Clown Day. I’ve written 175 posts about clowns and clowning, and I’m flattered to be affiliated with a new clown school, so I want to establish up front that I am clown-positive. Somehow, the public image of clowns has drifted in recent years from one of mirth to one of terror. If there is a clown or a clown doll in a contemporary motion picture, it is 1000 times more likely to be in a horror film than a comedy, a strange development indeed, though it’s not one I have a problem with, for to my mind, the ancient tradition straddles both concepts, as articulated here and here. Clowns can be both funny and terrifying, for they are distillations of humanity. For this reason, they can also, for God’s sake, be sad.

Today’s post however is along the lines of an intervention. It is about a certain artistic pitfall, about dilettantism and cliche, about pretension vs. ambition. Everyone I write about in the survey below was a great artist. Some of them were never guilty of the sin I’m describing. I am not against clowns incorporating pathos into their art. Quite the opposite. I am against performers lazily invoking dead symbolism as a replacement for the organic discovery of real sentiment. You can decide for yourself which examples fall into which camp.

The Cinematic Sad Clown draws from many theatrical and literary sources, I believe, including the traditional character of Pierrot, as well as Victor Hugo’s 1869 novel The Man Who Laughs and subsequent stage and screen adaptations, Leoncavallo’s 1892 opera Pagliacci, and Fausto Maria Martini’s 1919 play Ridi, Pagliaccio, adapted by Belasco as Laugh, Clown, Laugh. (“Paggliaccio” means “clown” in Italian, “Pagliacci” being the plural)

Just follow the links to read more about the people, characters, and works I’ve mentioned.

Jimmy Savo was mostly a stage clown, though he did make some appearances on the big and small screens. I believe he had some influence on this guy:

Charlie Chaplin is obviously the architect of pathos in screen comedy, and most who follow are obviously reaching to achieve something like his reputation. He is often derided by some for his sentimentality nowadays. But it should be noted that Chaplin only incorporated pathos when it emerged organically from his story, and it only did so in a small minority of his films. As it happens, they are among his best known films, hence his reputation. City Lights is the most famous example. Some other notable ones include The Tramp, The Kid, The Gold Rush, The Circus, and Limelight. Chaplin was a great artist. If you hate him just because his character is occasionally allowed to be sad, what a soulless and unfeeling monster you must be.

Harry Langdon went for Chaplinesque pathos in his last few silent features, most notably in Three’s a Crowd (1927).

With his character Weary Willy, Emmett Kelly was primarily a circus clown, though he did make appearances in film and television. I think he ranks with Chaplin as an influence on those who later strove for this kind of thing, though. And he’s up there with Pierrot as an inspiration for black velvet paintings.

As a general rule of thumb, Buster Keaton was the ultimate UNsentimental clown, one of the many reasons he is today the favorite silent film comedian of many. His first MGM talkie Free and Easy (1930) however tried to make him more Chaplinesque.

Joe E. Brown , The Circus Clown (1934). Joe wants to make good in the big top but his dad (also played by Joe) disapproves.

Beginning with A Night at the Opera (1936), Harpo Marx began to tack in a Chaplinesque direction, though even in some of the Marx Bros. earlier features (such as Horse Feathers) there are flashes of sentiment.

Milton Berle’s 1948 vanity project Always Leave Them Laughing strives for sympathy (mostly as manifested in Bert Lahr‘s sad sack veteran comedian character)

Jimmy Stewart in The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) — a clown wanted for murder!

Red Skelton in The Clown (1953) — an alcoholic clown!

Jackie Gleason in Gigot (1962) — a mute, poverty stricken clown!

Beware, beware Jerry Lewis in clown make-up! He’d gone there a few times on television over the years, then brought it to a climax in his ill-advised Holocaust clown drama The Day the Clown Cried (1972).

Marcel Marceau was obviously a great stage and screen artist. Far from being a copycat, he was an original. He seldom made films, but here we want to point out an occasion when he did star in a movie and brought pathos to it, the horror oddity Shanks, released in 1974.

Mel Brooks in Life Stinks (1991). A brilliant comedian (as opposed to a clown) attempting something like Chaplin here and straying very far from what he does best.

Roberto Benigni in Life is Beautiful (1997), proceeding organically, achieved what so many of his colleagues have striven for.

When Robin Williams strove for sentiment, as he did all too often, he was, to my mind, unbearable. The summit of this kind of thing was the widely and justifiably ridiculed Patch Adams (1998), where he begged for our sympathy as a pediatric hospital clown. I am reminded of Oscar Wilde’s remark that you’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the death of Little Nell. The following year, he followed in the steps of Jerry Lewis and Roberto Benigni with his own concentration camp movie.

Without a doubt, I’ll add to this rogue’s gallery as examples occur to me. Meantime, please don’t send hate mail. Then I’ll be the sad clown!

For more on the art of clowningplease check out my book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.