The Side Show of Life (1924) is a silent film produced by Famous Players-Lasky, directed by Herbert Brenon and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film is based on the novel The Mountebank by William J. Locke which had been turned into a play by Ernest Denny.Ernest Torrence stars in the role of a clown during World War I similar to that of Lon Chaney's in He Who Gets Slapped that same year and Brenon's Laugh, Clown, Laugh four years later. Norman Trevor starred in the Broadway play in 1923.