Laughing Sinners

1931 film

May 30, 1931 (1931-05-30)

Running time

72 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBudget$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.

Plot

Cast

Joan Crawford as Ivy Stevens
Neil Hamilton as Howard Palmer
Clark Gable as Carl Loomis
Marjorie Rambeau as Ruby
Guy Kibbee as Cass Wheeler
Cliff Edwards as Mike
Roscoe Karns as Fred Geer
Gertrude Short as Edna
George Cooper as Joe
George F. Marion as Humpty
Bert Woodruff as Tink

Production

Casting

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 distinguished career in mainstream feature films ended forever and he wound up demoted to cowboy B pictures, with his name changed 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.

Reception

Critical reception

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]

Box office

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]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
^ Quirk, Lawrence J.. The Films of Joan Crawford. The Citadel Press, 1968.