drednm I watched LAUGHTER, a 1930 film starring Nancy Carroll and Fredric March. Many comments and reviews state this film as a forerunner of the 30s screwball comedy. Yes there were some screwball elements, such as the silly sequence when the stars, caught in the rain, break into a house and on bear rugs while their clothes dry. There's also a terrific scene when March is playing piano when the butler (Leonard Carey) tries to correct him. They end up playing duets! There's also a nice party scene where Eric Blore shows up in an angel costume. Another standout scene is when the daughter (Diane Ellis) starts to jazz dance and is joined by Carroll while Frank Morgan sourly looks on.Still, I don't see this film as a comedy, let alone a screwball comedy. Carroll (she's very good) plays a former show girl who marries Morgan for his money. His daughter is only a little younger than Carroll. The daughter is a little wild; Carroll is a lot bored. She has everything in her life but "laughter." When she takes up with March, we know the marriage is doomed. So does everyone else.Morgan's character hasn't an ounce of humor in him. There's also a tragic starving artist type (Glenn Anders) who gets involved with Ellis. It's with this character that any shred of comedy drains from the picture as doom settles over the storyline.This is still a very good film with solid work from its stars.

wmorrow59 It hasn't received much critical attention, but Harry d'Arrast's comedy-drama Laughter is more than just an interesting and entertaining movie: it's a milestone in Hollywood's treatment of romantic comedy, a prototype for the "screwball" style produced several years before the term was in popular use. That's not to say that this film is as funny or wild as, for instance, Bringing Up Baby or Twentieth Century; despite its title, Laughter includes a lot of serious and surprisingly downbeat material, but it does point the way to the screwball genre in subject matter (i.e. the interplay of love and money) and tone, especially in one key sequence. It's also very well made for its time, and looks all the more impressive compared to other movies released in 1930, when the new technology of sound was still an impediment to smooth filmmaking technique for so many directors.The story is focused on a young woman named Peggy (Nancy Carroll), a former Follies girl who has been married for a year to wealthy broker C. Morton Gibson (Frank Morgan). For a broker he seems like a fairly decent chap, but unfortunately he lacks any trace of humor or spontaneity. Morton never laughs and seldom even cracks a smile. The couple, who live in a fabulous Deco mansion filled with servants, never display any genuine warmth for each other, and barely seem to be acquainted. It's clear that in marrying this man Peggy made a calculated financial deal, trading her youth and vitality for the security of this man's wealth. It's also apparent that Peggy is still struggling to clean up some messy situations left over from her earlier life; in the opening sequence an emotionally unstable artist named Ralph (Glenn Anders) who believes he's in love with Peggy threatens to kill himself over her. Throughout the film there are several scenes set in Ralph's grungy studio, where low-down bluesy music always blares, and the contrast with Gibson's spotless, quiet mansion is striking.Peggy's situation hits a crisis when a former suitor named Paul Lockridge (Fredric March) returns from Europe. Paul is a breezy, fun-loving composer who disapproves of Peggy's marriage and is determined to shake up her life, which he quickly succeeds in doing. March is terrific in this role. Viewers familiar with his later, more stately performances may be surprised at how energetic and loose he is here, like Cary Grant in his heyday. He makes himself at home in the Gibson mansion, rummaging around in the fridge, gnawing a chicken leg and washing it down with beer, and playing his tunes on the piano. (His rowdy playing is pointedly contrasted with Mr. Gibson's fussy plink-plink-plinking at the keyboard.) In the film's "screwball" highpoint, Peggy and Paul go for an afternoon ride out on Long Island. They run out of gas, get caught in the rain, and accommodate themselves by breaking into a house whose owners are away. What's notable about this sequence is the pair's playful attitude: they treat the whole thing as a lark. They decide that the place belongs to a couple named Smith and portray them, only Peggy is Mr. Smith and Paul is the Missus. They wrap themselves in bearskin rugs, and that's how we find them at breakfast the next morning. Unfortunately the runaway couple can't sustain the antic mood when reality crashes in on them. They're arrested, but when the identity of Peggy's husband is revealed they're quickly released and given a police escort home. That's when Paul informs Peggy that, for all her riches, what she lacks is laughter, and the lack of it is smothering her. "You were born for laughter," he tells her. "Nothing in this life of yours now is as important as that."The attitude towards wealth is striking, considering that the Great Depression was the inescapable calamity of the era. Here we encounter an attitude that would be reiterated and refined in later screwball comedies, that is, Depression or no Depression, money is worthless if you're not happy with your life. (Of course, money comes in handy if you're starving, but that's a different debate for another time.) Peggy comes to realize that she'd rather gamble on uncertainty and "laughter" than settle for an embalmed existence under C. Morton Gibson's roof, and Nancy Carroll is so lively and convincing in the role we choose to believe her. Whenever I see one of Carroll's films I wonder why her career didn't flourish; in addition to being very pretty she was an actress of nuance and versatility. She and March are first-rate in Laughter, and so is Frank Morgan, in a sympathetic portrayal of an emotionally stunted man. Morgan gives a restrained, carefully calibrated performance entirely free of the blustery shtick that became his trademark later on. His C. Morton Gibson seems fully aware of his shallowness but unable to develop as a person, frustrated and angry but essentially masochistic in his unwillingness to take charge as events in his household spin out of control. We identify with Peggy & Paul and want to see them break away, but Gibson is a surprisingly poignant figure.Laughter is a well-written, polished film that deserves to be better known. It's not in the same league as the later screwball classics when it comes to humor, but taken on its own terms it's an intelligent piece of work that deserves credit for its groundbreaking approach to romantic comedy.

purplecrayon I was expecting this movie to be much more than it was. I read that it was one of Fredric March's personal favorites, his others being A Star is Born, Death Takes a Holiday, and Best Years of Our Lives, and so since he liked it I thought it was going to be really good. I must say I was really bored with it. The story seemed boring and not really well written. I think it could have been a much better story if the script was better. As is, there were too many loose ends. Sure, there were some funny moments (it was enjoyable to see Fred draped in a white bearskin rug!), and Fred gave a few kisses, and you got to see him in his undershirt. But I have seen him in MUCH better roles, more romantic, more funny...everyone's opinion is different. This is mine...It is one of the few Fred movies I didn't really like.

cocoanut_grove "Laughter" is a glorious romantic comedy with a terrific cast including that great man of the screen, Fredric March. It concerns a young woman who has married for stability and wealth, but can't forget the love of her life, played by the delicious Mr March. It was made at Paramount's Long Island studios, and some scenes were shot on location in New York, giving the movie a different "look" to many others of the period. Some people think of this movie as the first "Screwball" comedy. "Laughter" was Frank Morgan's first talkie and the last movie for Diane Ellis who plays his daughter. She died on her honeymoon in December 1930.