Leave 'Em Laughing(1981)
Real-life clown Jack Thum, along with his devoted wife, Shirlee, cared for dozens of homeless children — 37 of them over the years — in the Chicago area, all of whom come back to visit when they discover he's terminally ill.
Movie: Leave 'Em Laughing
Top 10 Billed Cast
Jack Thum
Shirlee Thum
Dr. Arthur Abrams
Jetter
Smiley Jenkins
Roland Green
Gina
McClain
Ralph
HomePage
Overview
Real-life clown Jack Thum, along with his devoted wife, Shirlee, cared for dozens of homeless children — 37 of them over the years — in the Chicago area, all of whom come back to visit when they discover he's terminally ill.
Release Date
1981-04-29
Average
8
Rating:
4.0 startsTagline
Genres
Languages:
EnglishKeywords
Recommendations Movies
Anne of Green Gables(en)
A retelling of L.M. Montgomery's story of Anne Shirley, an orphan who is accidentally sent to a couple looking to adopt a boy instead.
Girl in the Box(en)
The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
Normal(en)
A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.
American Son(en)
Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.
Starving in Suburbia(en)
When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
Heaven(en)
Heaven Leigh Casteel, gifted and intelligent, is the eldest of five dirt-poor children struggling to survive in a mountain shack. As she endures neglect and abuse, Heaven discovers a dark secret that changes everything she thought she knew about her family. Then tragedy tears her world apart and she must forge her own way in the cruel, unknown world.
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge(en)
An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story(en)
Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.
Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault(en)
A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
Return to Zero(en)
Based on the true story of a successful couple, Maggie and Aaron who are preparing for the arrival of their first child.
Evelyn(en)
Desmond Doyle is devastated when his wife abandons their family on the day after Christmas. His unemployment, and the fact that there is no woman in the house to care for the children—Evelyn, Dermot and Maurice—make it clear to the authorities this is an untenable situation. The Catholic Church and the Irish courts decide to put the Doyle children into Church-run orphanages.
Fab Five: The Texas Cheerleader Scandal(en)
Based on a true story. Five high school cheerleaders, including the daughter of the school principal, run amok -- and teachers, parents and administrators allow them to get away with a wide range of scandalous behavior. Known as the "Fab Five," the girls disregard school rules, drink alcohol and post suggestive pictures on the Internet. But when the new cheerleading coach attempts to discipline them, her superiors ask her to resign.
Hello Sister, Goodbye Life(en)
A college student must take care of her 7-year-old half sister after the death of their parents.
The Jungle Book(en)
The boy Mowgli makes his way to the man-village with Bagheera, the wise panther. Along the way he meets jazzy King Louie, the hypnotic snake Kaa and the lovable, happy-go-lucky bear Baloo, who teaches Mowgli "The Bare Necessities" of life and the true meaning of friendship.
Burton and Taylor(en)
Legendary acting duo and married couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor prepare for a 1983 theatrical production of the play "Private Lives."
Cheaters(en)
In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.
Inherit the Wind(en)
Two great lawyers argue the case for and against a science teacher accused of the crime of teaching evolution.
Norman(en)
A teenager pretends to be dying from cancer as a way to cope with the realities of his daily existence and his father's terminal illness.
The Christmas Shoes(en)
Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.
Where the Red Fern Grows(en)
Billy Coleman works hard and saves his earnings for two years to achieve his dream of buying two red-bone coonhound pups. He develops a new trust in life as he faces overwhelming challenges in adventure and tragedy roaming the river bottoms of Cherokee country with his dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann.
Similar Movies
Clouds(en)
Young musician Zach Sobiech discovers his cancer has spread, leaving him just a few months to live. With limited time, he follows his dream and makes an album, unaware that it will soon be a viral music phenomenon.
Johnny(te)
A martial arts coach struggles to earn money through fights in order to save his wife suffering from blood cancer.
Dark Glasses(it)
Diana, a high-class prostitute trying to escape from a serial killer, suffers a car accident that leaves her blind and kills the family of Chin, a ten-year-old boy.
71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance(de)
71 scenes revolving around multiple Viennese residents who are by chance involved with a senseless gun slaughter on Christmas Eve.
The Pugilist(en)
After his eldest son is murdered in a gangland hit, an absentee father desperately tries to protect what’s left of the shattered family he abandoned.
Our Family(ja)
The emotional journey of a four-member family that fails to recognize that it is rapidly growing apart until the mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Chain Kulii Ki Main Kulii(hi)
An orphan boy with dreams of finding a family and fame as a cricketer, finds a bat with magical powers and lands a spot in the Indian cricket team.
Miss You Already(en)
The friendship between two life-long girlfriends is put to the test when one starts a family and the other falls ill.
Sundays and Cybele(fr)
The tragic story of a young orphan girl who is befriended by an innocent but emotionally disabled veteran of the French Indochina War.
My Life Partner(ml)
My Life Partner deals with the deep and intricate emotional relationship between two men. The movie narrates the story of two friends-turned-lovers, Richard and Kiran, who were both born and brought up in different cultural backgrounds. Issues crop up when they plan to add a baby to their lives, reinforcing their mutual bond as the Indian law does not allow a man to adopt a child on his own. To find a way around this, Richard, who is a bisexual, marries an orphan, Pavithra. Their life goes topsy-turvy, when Pavithra discovers Richard and Kiran's relationship.
Oliver Twist(en)
When 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist dares to ask his cruel taskmaster, Mr. Bumble, for a second serving of gruel, he's hired out as an apprentice. Escaping that dismal fate, young Oliver falls in with the street urchin known as the Artful Dodger and his criminal mentor, Fagin. When kindly Mr. Brownlow takes Oliver in, Fagin's evil henchman Bill Sikes plots to kidnap the boy.
Miracle in Milan(it)
Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò, enters an orphanage. Totò leaves the orphanage a happy young man, and looks for work in post-war Milan. He ends up with the homeless and organizes them to build a shanty town in a vacant lot. But when greedy developers threaten the community’s land, Totò will need all the help he can get in order to find an impossible way out.
Shoeshine(it)
Two shoeshine boys in postwar Rome, Italy save up to buy a horse, but their involvement as dupes in a burglary lands them in juvenile prison; the experience take a devastating toll on their friendship.
Journey for Margaret(en)
An American newspaperman and his wife, end up in London after several retreats in the opening days of WWII. After a shrapnel wound and loss of her baby she returns to America. War weary, he is forced to do a story about war orphans, where he meets Margaret.
Hugo(en)
Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo's job is to oil and maintain the station's clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father. Accompanied by the goddaughter of an embittered toy merchant, Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home.
Njandukalude Naattil Oridavela(ml)
Sheela Chacko's leads a regular life as a mother, wife and a college lecturer. All this turns around when she learns about a serious affliction facing her. The comedy-drama carries on about how her insecure husband and her three children react to the enfolding situation.
Before I Wake(en)
An orphaned child's dreams—and nightmares—manifest physically as he sleeps.
Perro callejero(es)
An abandoned child steals to survive and has problems when he decides to steal from the priest who helps him.
Dil Bechara(hi)
Kizie and Manny, two ordinary people brought together by a tragic twist, embark on a bittersweet and extraordinary journey into the heart of that crazy little thing called 'life'.
Love You to the Stars and Back(tl)
A girl named Mika decides to go on a road trip to look for aliens. During her trip, she accidentally bumps into Caloy whom she gives a free ride to until he reaches his destination. Mika then finds out that Caloy has cancer but despite it, he has learned to accept his fate. Both embark on a journey filled with adventures and misadventures not knowing they would fall in love with each other along the way.