Clowns are supposed to be makers of mirth, messengers of merriment, producers of pratfalls, fabricators of frivolity.
And, yet, as Stephen King’s “It” (the adaptation of which hits theaters this Friday) reminds us, they can also scare the crap out of us.
That’s not the only emotion clowns can evoke in viewers. Here are seven movie clowns, listed chronologically, who have brought tears, screams, laughs and more.
1. He, ”He Who Gets Slapped” (1924)
Lon Chaney dons the white makeup for this silent drama, as an inventor who answers humiliation by changing his identity and joining a circus. His act consists of being ritually berated and slapped by the other clowns. He falls for the lovely horseback rider Consuelo (Norma Shearer), who is the target of the affections of an evil baron — the same man who stole the clown’s invention years earlier. Trivia: It’s the first movie to feature Leo the Lion as MGM’s mascot.
2. Buttons, “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952)
In Cecil B. deMille’s overstuffed drama about a traveling circus, starring Charlton Heston as the circus’s manager, Jimmy Stewart carves out a small niche of humanity for himself as Buttons, one of the troupe’s clowns. During an otherwise jovial and humorous performance, Buttons has a whispered conversation with a lady in the audience. The woman (Lillian Albertson), we learn, is Buttons’ mother, warning him that the law is again looking for him. Eventually we learn Buttons, who is never seen without his makeup, was a doctor accused in a “mercy killing” of his wife.
3. Aliens, “Killer Klowns From Outer Space” (1988)
The Chiodo Brothers were famous for special effects and creature work in other people’s movies — from “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” to the marionettes in “Team America: World Police.” When they got to make their own movie, it was a semi-spoof of the alien-invasion genre, with the creatures all looking like circus clowns. The results were at once funny and terrifying.
4. Grimm, “Quick Change” (1990)
Grimm (played by Bill Murray) isn’t really a clown. That’s just his disguise to pull off a daring bank robbery in New York. (When the guard asks “What the hell kind of clown are you?”— Grimm’s reply is “The crying-on-the-inside kind, I guess.”) Murray and Howard Franklin (who wrote the screenplay) co-directed this comedy, where the heist goes well but getting out of town with the loot presents one problem after another.
5. Shakes, “Shakes the Clown” (1991)
Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait made his directing debut with this cult favorite, called by one critic “the ‘Citizen Kane’ of alcoholic clown movies.” Bobcat plays Shakes, a party clown whose alcohol-aided depression gets worse when a rival (played by Tom Kenny, aka SpongeBob SquarePants) gets a children’s TV gig. Definitely not for kids, or a fair number of adults.
6. Silly Billy, “Capturing the Friedmans” (2003)
Documentarian Andrew Jarecki was making a short film about children’s birthday-party entertainers in New York. One of his subjects, David Friedman, who performs under the name Silly Billy, turned out to have a fascinating backstory: His brother, Jesse, and father, Arnold, had pleaded guilty to child sexual abuse. Jarecki’s look into the Friedmans’ crimes, the community panic that ensued and the family’s response (much of it documented in revealing home movies), shocked audiences at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, where the movie won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. documentaries.
7. Bing Bong, “Inside Out” (2015)
Part elephant, part cat, part dolphin, part cotton candy and all fun, Bing Bong (voiced by Richard Kind) was the imaginary childhood friend of Riley, rummaging around her memory as she’s growing up and no longer playing with him. Dressed in a natty hobo jacket and hat, there’s more than a bit of clown to the character — a clown who, in his final act of sacrifice, made a few audience members tear up.