Best movies like The Clown

The story of a small-time vaudeville trio and their rise to the big time.

Rose Sargent, a Roaring '20s singer, becomes a Ziegfeld Follies star as her criminal husband gets deeper in trouble.

The Ritz Brothers pretend to be Kentucky hillbillies in order to get a booking on a radio show.

Husband-and-wife vaudeville stars separate when success goes to his head.

1960s musical showcasing Cliff Richard. Four bus mechanics working for London Transport strike up a deal with the company: they do up a one of the company's legendary red double decker buses and take it to southern Europe as a mobile hotel. If it succeeds, they will be put in charge of a whole fleet. While on the road in France they pick up three young British ladies whose car breaks down and offer to take them to their next singing job in Athens. They also pick up a stowaway, who hides the fact that she's a famous American pop star on the run, chased by the media and her parents.

Broadway producer Nickie North and press agent Scoop Trimble find an investor for their next show who insists that they cast his ex-girlfriend, Clarice Sheldon, in the lead role and rehearse out of town. The crew set up on a family farm, and all is well until the leading man falls for the farmer's daughter, Patience Bingham. When flighty starlet Sheldon finds out he has a new girlfriend, she takes off, leaving North and Trimble to find a new leading lady.

Famous singer Fanny Brice has divorced her first husband Nicky Arnstein. During the Great Depression she has trouble finding work as an artist, but meets Billy Rose, a newcomer who writes lyrics and owns a nightclub.

The late, great impresario Florenz Ziegfeld looks down from heaven and ordains a new revue in his grand old style.

Sailors on leave in San Francisco get mixed up in love and show business.

George Cabot Jr., the son of a department store owner, enrolls Kristina Nielsen, the store's sports clerk, at a university to use her as an advertisement for their fashion department. She falls for Larry Taylor, a teacher, and gets expelled.

A romantic comedy, focusing on the love triangle between Bob Jones, Alysia Potter and Polly Meachum. Originally engaged, Bob and Alysia elope to Bowling Green, Connecticut, where they meet Silas Meachum, a campaigner against motion pictures, and his daughter, Polly. The eloping couple’s family arrive, chasing them, and persuade them to wait to get married. Polly goes to New York to join the Ziegfeld Follies, but is ultimately replaced by Alysia. As Bob consoles Polly, Alysia breaks off the engagement, and Bob and Polly may now marry.

A hootchy-kootchy whodunit set at a small seedy carnival where a reporter tries to discover who killed his boss while his girlfriend inexplicably joins the burlesque show!

Joan Daley, a New York booking/press agent, attempts to recruit two local stand-ins, Jinx Terry and Lois Morgan, when the Cuban sister-act, Marianela and Rosita she as booked into the nightclub for which she works fails to materialize. Complications arrive when the real Cuban sisters show up.

Musical about vaudeville performers, from 1944.

Chubby William Tracy starred as Dodo Doubleday, a feckless Army draftee blessed (or cursed) with a photographic memory. Inexplicably promoted to sergeant, Doubleday becomes the bane of topkick Sgt. Ames' (Joe Sawyer) existence.

In this amiable Columbia B musical, society girl Ann Miller escapes her Back Bay family by performing in the chorus line in a burlesque house. But trouble starts when her boss (William Wright) decides to build her up as a star. One of the many bread-and-butter Columbia productions graced by the contributions of Cole’s in-house dance studio. Cole dances behind Miller in “I’m Gonna See My Baby.” --Museum of Modern Art

An aspiring singer and her lover, a songwriter who has desperately resorted to writing radio jingles, have many conflicts on their road to success...

Comedy about newlyweds wondering if their marriage was a mistake.

Broadway's most successful producer, John Forrester, is deeply in love with his wife Margaret and dreams of the future when his son Jack will step into his shoes. He sails to England to produce a show but the ship strikes a derelict wreckage and is sinking rapidly. In the ensuing wild panic, Forrester saves many lives, until finally, panic stricken by sudden fear, he dons a woman's clothes and is among the rescued. On the coast of Newfouldland, the villagers, not aware of his true identity, curse him but he is befriended by Alec who helps him conceal his identity. With a planned story of his survival, he returns to New York but cannot face his family or friends after he sees the plaque to his heroism on his New York theatre. Deciding to remain thought of as dead, he becomes a derelict himself, surviving on odd jobs as he watches from afar his now-grown son begin his career as a producer.

Aspiring Producer Michael McCreigh convinces Uncle Carlton to finance a play on the condition that he lives the play's ridiculous plot. If Michael fails, he must work in Carlton's meat packing plant.

Kay Parrish, a society girl, finds she is penniless when her father dies. However she persuades Terry Gallagher to give her a hostess job at his New York City clip-joint, which he operates on the theory that if the suckers want it he'll give it to them, albeit he does apply some principles regarding the matter. A Broadway playboy, Greg Emerson, falls in love with Kay and proposes but his high-society parents object strongly. Terry. although he also has fallen in love with Kay and doesn't realize she feels the same about him, sets out to provide a happy ending for the couple.

Ex-vaudeville performer Trixie makes a come-back, and threatens to thwart the ambitions of her song-writing step-children, Bob and Judy.

Scattergood finds out that his neighbor, Elly Drew, is going to sell her home to support her son David, an aspiring playwright, who is in New York City trying to get his play produced. Scattergood decides to loan Elly the money but things are not as David has been telling his Mother...

In his last film assignment, portly Walter Connolly fills the title role (in more ways than one) in The Great Victor Herbert. Very little of Herbert's life story is incorporated in the screenplay (a closing title actually apologizes for the film's paucity of cold hard facts); instead, the writers allow the famed composer's works to speak for themselves. In the tradition of one of his own operettas, Herbert spends most of his time patching up the shaky marriage between tenor John Ramsey (Allan Jones) and Louise Hall (Mary Martin). Many of Herbert's most famous compositions are well in evidence, including "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life", "March of the Toys" and "Kiss Me Again", the latter performed con brio by teenaged coloratura Susanna Foster. Evidently, the producers were able to secure the film rights for the Herbert songs, but not for the stage productions in which they appeared, which may explain such bizarre interpolations as having a song from Naughty Marietta.

A Broadway star devises a scheme to win back her husband when she suspects he's being unfaithful.

Showgirl Tony Landers, supported by her friend Flip Daly, fights for the custody of her son during a divorce hearing.

Bob Allen, a struggling songwriter poses as a millionaire cowboy to win Broadway star Babs Lee.

Blind Mrs. Lind comes to American to visit her three children whom she thinks are successful.

A fast-talking boxing manager and the somewhat hapless fighter he manages happen to run into a young man who was a good prizefighter in his day but is now out of the sport and has a drinking problem. They decide to train him for a big match, and in the process find themselves involved in romance, shady characters and a possible kidnapping.

A Hollywood heartthrob helps a small-town girl achieve stardom.

Burlesque queen Doll Face Carroll is dismissed from an audition for a legitimate Broadway show because she lacks culture. Her boss/manager Mike decides that she can get both culture and plenty of publicity by writing her autobiography. He hires a ghost writer to do all the work, but doesn't count on the possibility that Doll Face and her collaborator might have more than a book on their minds.

Maggie, a headlining comedienne with the Follies, takes a fall off the stage into the orchestra pit and lands on the drum of musician Al Cassidy. One thing leads to another, they fall in love and get married. Al becomes a famous songwriter and Maggie stays home and has children. One day Al is hired to write a big number for Selma Larson, one of the Follies' most beautiful stars, and falls for her.

A girl from a show-business family seeks a backer for her boyfriend's musical.

Nancy Willows (Constance Towers), pretty blonde high school teacher, writes song lyrics which spark the careers of struggling young pianist-composer Martin Adams (Keefe Brasselle')and would-be singer Jerry Dennis (Frankie Laine). When Nancy and Martin fall in love but quarrel over her old flame, David Parker (William Leslie), Nancy returns to her teaching job. Jerry reunites Nancy and Martin and, in turn, succumbs to the charms of his new secretary Marge Stevenson (Lucy Marlow).

Broadway dancing star Adele Dorey who, overworked and exhausted, suddenly ups and leaves New York in favor of a country village. But when promoter Bobby Lewis (Egan) of the barnstorming Gay Girlies Burlesque Company arrives in town, he picks an incognito Adele among all the pretty village girls to star in his new show. On a lark, Adele introduces her maid Jane (Louise Fazenda) as her mother and accepts a contract. When Adele's identity is finally revealed, the slumming star apologizes for her deception by offering Bobby a Broadway job.