Laughing At Life

2416. LAUGHING AT LIFE (1933-USA). With VICTOR MCLAGLEN, CONCHITA MONTENEGRO, WILLIAM “STAGE” BOYD, LOIS WILSON, HENRY B. WALTHALL, REGIS TOOMEY, GUINN WILLIAMS, NOAH BEERY, SR., TULLY MARSHALL, HENRY ARMETTA, FRANKIE DARRO. A large and impressive cast helps enliven this spirited and action-packed adventure yarn. Victor McLagJen offers a robust performance as Dennis McHale, a free-spirited civil engineer working in the Panama Canal Zone. “I make my own rules. Always have and always will,” McHale heartily declares. It appears that he has been involved in a gun-running scheme. As he is about to be arrested, he abandons his wife and cute, curly-haired young son. McHale then becomes an adventurer who traverses the globe. As he treks from Tahiti to Shanghai to Calgary, he takes on different identities. He always means to return to his family but does not do so until he learns of his wife’s death. At this point, he discovers that the house in which his son has been living has burned to the ground, and the boy has been reported missing. Our intrepid hero goes on to fight in World War I where he also tangles with Mason, the federal agent who had attempted to arrest him back in the Canal Zone. He eventually ends up in the South American country of Alturas, where he becomes involved neck-deep in a revolution. At one point, he rescues a young civil engineer and his fiancee from a mob. The younger man immediately proves to be as daring and adventure-prone as his elder. Could one be the other’s long-lost offspring? 70 minutes. Adventure