He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
A scientist whose research and wife are stolen by a callous baron breaks down and remakes himself as "He," a circus clown whose whole act is being slapped by the other clowns. When the baron pursues a young bareback rider He has come to love, he plots a lethal revenge.
The first film produced entirely by the newly merged MGM, He Who Gets Slapped paired Sweden’s Victor Sjöström with Lon Chaney for a work of unusual psychological darkness. It is preserved in the National Film Registry.
Background
He Who Gets Slapped was the first film released by MGM after the studio merged its component companies in 1924. It paired Swedish director Victor Sjöström, who had made emotionally severe dramas in Sweden and Hollywood, with Lon Chaney, then at the height of his fame for physically transformative roles. Adapted from a play by Leonid Andreyev, the story follows a scientist who loses his wife and research to a callous baron, then rebuilds himself as a circus clown whose act is being slapped. Norma Shearer and John Gilbert, both MGM contract players, appear in the circus and romance scenes that drive the revenge plot.
What to watch for
Chaney’s performance is built almost entirely on pantomime, with the clown’s painted, mournful face doing the work that intertitles cannot. Sjöström frames the circus with a dark, claustrophobic eye, so the slapping routine plays as a public humiliation repeated night after night, while the baron’s presence in the audience keeps the revenge plot in view. Pay attention to how the film moves between the circus ring and the aristocratic world of the baron, a contrast that makes the final act of vengeance feel like the end of a long humiliation rather than a sudden turn.
