Movie Review: He Who Gets Slapped (1924)

Title: He Who Gets Slapped
Director: Victor Sjöström
Genre: Silent
Year: 1924
Cast: Lon Chaney, Sr. (Paul Beaumont/ HE), Norma Shearer (Consuelo), John Gilbert (Bezano), Tully Marshall (Count Mancini), Marc McDermott (Baron Regnard)

"In the grim comedy of life, it has been wisely said that the last laugh is the best."

That's the opening dialogue card for this silent gem. Under the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio, He Who Gets Slapped was the first film to undergo production, but was not the first to be released as it was reserved to be released in the proper season for "important" films. The story was based on a Russian book by Leonid Andreyev which was later adapted into a stage play in 1922.

Plot:
The film opens with Paul Beaumont (Lon Chaney) who is a scientist that proves a theory on the Origin of Man. Unfortunately, his benefactor Baron Regnard steals his work and makes him out to be a fool in front of the science academy by taking credit for his work and slapping him. If that wasn't enough, he finds out later that the Baron had not only stolen his work, but his wife as well. When he is slapped by her also, something snaps inside of him.

Years pass and Beaumont disappears to become a common clown in the circus, known simple as HE. The humiliation he suffered in front of the academy is the inspiration for his gag with an ensemble of sixty clowns, who all slap him, subsequently receiving roars of laughter from the public and bringing HE to fame. When a pretty young countess named Consuelo (Norma Shearer) joins the circus as a bareback rider, HE finds that his heart still beats when he falls hopelessly in love with her. However, it's her bareback partner Bezano (John Gilbert) who wins her heart and her greedy, bankrupt father who sells her into a betrothal with HE's old enemy, the Baron.

I won't tell you the ending. You'll have to see it yourself. What I will say, however, that HE gets the last laugh.

This is by no means the only clown role that the master Lon Chaney had ever fallen into. Four years after He Who Gets Slapped, MGM released what Chaney considered his favorite role in Laugh, Clown, Laugh! It was another tragic clown story, but a movie all its own. While both stories have their parallels (unrequited love, Lon Chaney as the clown who loses the woman of his heart to a richer and younger man) they're each distinctly different. Laugh, Clown, Laugh! is heart wrenching with Chaney as the lovable protagonist while He Who Gets Slapped has dark, often bizarre, overtones with some treachery and suspense thrown in.

After the release of this film, Lon Chaney was marked the first star of MGM. The two young love birds of the film, Norma Shearer and John Gilbert, also became famous faces of the MGM empire. In fact, Shearer wound up marrying one of the leading producers, Irving Thalberg, until his untimely death in 1936. John Gilbert would become notorious for starring opposite of Greta Garbo in countless silent film romances, but with the advent of sound, his career plunged when the world discovered this heartthrob had a less than impressive voice.

Throughout the film there is a lot of artistic imagery that may not be for the faint of heart since it features grinning clowns in swarms. In fact, it is my personal opinion that through this film, Lon Chaney effortlessly invented the scary clown and reinvented the tragic clown all in one. One minute, he chills you to the bone with an icy glare as he looks upon his nemesis the Baron. The next, he tugs at your heart strings as he looks to his lady love with intense longing. A feat he manages in almost all of his films, no matter what kind of make up he's hiding behind.

The plot itself is iffy. Granted, there's a lot left to be interpreted in silent film, but in He Who Gets Slapped the dialogue cards are often confusing in their attempt to be poetic in an already screwy story. Also, the gags that the clowns perform that bring the on-screen audience to tears from laughter don't provoke the same mirth in me. I don't understand the joke half the time because it comes off as being far too Shakespearean in its pantomime. But, since I'm a fan of plot, I let it go. The story, such as it is, isn't affected by it and many of the characters get what they deserve and more.

I'd recommend this movie to anyone, but if you're new to watching silent films, this may not be the best one to be "baptized" with. If anything, it is a must see for the always astounding performance of Lon Chaney Sr.

The film in its entirety can be found on YouTube.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0014972/