Laughing Sinners | |
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![]() Original film poster | |
Directed by | Harry Beaumont |
Written by | Continuity: Bess Meredyth Dialogue: Martin Flavin Edith Fitzgerald |
Based on | Torch Song 1930 play by Kenyon Nicholson |
Starring | Joan Crawford Neil Hamilton Clark Gable |
Cinematography | Charles Rosher |
Edited by | George Hively |
Music by | Charles H. Gabriel Martin Broones Ina D. Ogden |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
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Running time | 72 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $338,000 [1] |
Box office | $765,000 [1] |
Laughing Sinners is a 1931 American pre-Code Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer feature film starring Joan Crawford and Clark Gable in a story about a cafe entertainer who experiences spiritual redemption. The dialogue by Martin Flavin was based upon the play Torch Song by Kenyon Nicholson. The film was directed by Harry Beaumont. Laughing Sinners was the second of eight cinematic collaborations between Crawford and Gable.
Ivy Stevens, a singer and dancer, is callously abandoned by her lover Howard. She tries to commit suicide, but Carl, a Salvation Army member, stops her and introduces her to the charitable ways of his group. She joins, and Howard comes walking by her in the street by chance. Later, he seduces her and tries to bring her back to their old way of life. However, Carl drops by, and -- after punching Howard in the face --, disavows that any affection of his towards her is influencing him to bring her back to the Army; and he convinces her to return. Ivy abandons Howard and the last scene of the film shows Ivy and Carl, in Salvation Army uniform, walking off and sharing a hug.
John Mack Brown was originally playing Gable's role when the studio decided to scrap his footage and reshoot the part with Gable taking Brown's place. At that point, Brown's career in mainstream feature films ended and he transitioned to B westerns, reverting his name to "Johnny Mack Brown."
Crawford and Rambeau, who both play chorus girls in Laughing Sinners, would go on to play mother (Rambeau) and daughter (Crawford) in the film Torch Song in 1953. "Torch Song" is the name of the play on which Laughing Sinners is based.
Andre Sennwald commented in The New York Times , "Miss Crawford...has tempered the intense and not a little self-conscious quality of her acting without hurting her vibrant and breath-catching spirit." [2]
According to MGM records the film earned $624,000 in the US and Canada and $141,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $156,000. [1]
William Clark Gable was an American film actor. Often referred to as the "King of Hollywood", he had roles in more than 60 films in a variety of genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as a leading man. He was named the seventh greatest male movie star of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute.
Joan Crawford was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford launched a publicity campaign and built an image as a nationally known flapper by the end of the 1920s. By the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hardworking young women who find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money. By the end of the 1930s, she was labeled "box office poison".
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Marjorie Burnet Rambeau was an American film and stage actress. She began her stage career at age 12, and appeared in several silent films before debuting in her first sound film, Her Man (1930). She was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in Primrose Path (1940) and Torch Song (1953), and received the 1955 National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in A Man Called Peter and The View from Pompey's Head.
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