Larmes de clown

A celebrated circus clown, HE Who Gets Slapped, plots the punishment of two evil aristocrats.

Lon Chaney, the Silent Screen's master chameleon, adds another portrait to his gallery of pathetic grotesques. This time he plays a scientist who becomes a clown after his former life is destroyed by his adulterous wife and a faithless friend. A young woman provides him with someone to secretly adore, until her wicked father threatens to ruin her happiness. Chaney's face is an absolute wonder to watch as it registers pain, anguish, distress and unrequited passion, underlining the modern reassessment of him as one of cinema's greatest actors. Uninhibited in his circus costume & makeup, he provides no doubt but that he, under different circumstances, could have become a marvelous big top clown.

This was the first release of the new film company merger Metro-Goldwyn, thus making Chaney their first star, and was an important rung up the ladder for the two performers playing the young lovers. Norma Shearer & John Gilbert would soon be major movie celebrities--here they give good account of themselves as the circus' daredevil & bareback riders, and as Chaney's truest friends (both unaware of his love for Miss Shearer). In a film full of circus excitement, the director has given the young couple a moment of unexpected beauty: whilst on a picnic their innocent affections are noticed by a passing peasant, who gives the call of the cuckoo as the perfect grace note to their bucolic joy.

Marc McDermott as a brutal Baron and Tully Marshall as a dissolute Count make villains well worthy of the harshest retribution. Comic Ford Sterling plays one of Chaney's fellow clowns.

The Studio gave this silent film fine production values, while director Victor Sjöström added little embellishments of cinematic flair, dealing with scenes of mysterious clown figures representing fate, which enhance the film.

Stepping into the role created on Broadway by Richard Bennett, Lon Chaney stars in this film as a once famous scientist who chose the life of a circus clown out of shame.

At least now I know where the business with James Stewart in The Greatest Show on Earth came from. But whereas Stewart was guilty of a mercy killing, Chaney leaves because he's found that his wife's been two timing him with a titled nobleman.

Years later Chaney is a famous attraction at the circus in Paris and he's falling big time for young Norma Shearer who is a bareback rider and also a member of the nobility who has fallen on hard times. She can't see Chaney no way, no how. She's got her eyes on trapeze artist John Gilbert.

But wouldn't you know it, Marc McDermott that self same cad who took Chaney's wife from him has designs on Shearer. And her dad Tully Marshall who's a lecherous old reprobate himself wants to get back in the chips himself so he's quite willing to pawn off Shearer to the old rake.

Naturally of course Chaney has his plans for the whole lot of them and it's settled in a gruesome manner for the silent screen. The film is highly melodramatic and would be considered camp today, but for the subtle performance of Chaney. For the silent screen, with a minimum of histrionics, Chaney does get you to feel a lot of empathy for the character.

It's one of that fine collection of characters Chaney created when the screen didn't speak and should be seen.

Based on a play from Russian author Leonid Andreyev, 'He Who Gets Slapped' has some very dark themes - humiliation, adultery, betrayal, exploitation, and sadistic glee at someone else's expense. Lon Chaney stars as a scientist who early on suffers in two ways: his discoveries are stolen by his benefactor (Marc McDermott), and then his wife (Ruth King) tells him she's leaving him for the same scoundrel. Humiliated in public and private by being slapped and laughed at, he retreats from his life and takes up a career as a clown. His act? Being slapped and abused by 60 other clowns, much to the merriment of the audience. (Of course!)

It's a kind of ridiculous plot device to get him into this position, and then for his benefactor to cross paths with him five years later, but if you can suspend disbelief, you'll probably enjoy the film for its performances. You see some of the worst of human behavior shown in unflinching ways, and Chaney is the perfect guy for the part. He's fantastic, and to see him dressed up as a pathetic, bitter clown is something else. The film also includes Norma Shearer early in her career (just 22 years old); she plays a new performer to the circus. She begins having romantic feelings for her fellow horseman (John Gilbert), and there is a lovely scene of them out on a picnic, the charm of which helps lighten the tone of the movie. Shearer is so pretty that she also attracts Chaney (who we feel sorry for), and McDermott (who we hiss at). Love and self-sacrifice are the best of human behavior, and provide a counterbalance to the rest of the film.

Another aspect I found interesting was that it reminded me of a couple of Chaney's later films in the 1920's that I had seen before, both directed by Tod Browning. 'The Unknown' (1927) also takes place in a circus, and in one of its best scenes, features Chaney's horror and angst to being laughed at. 'Where East is East' (1929) also features 'murder by using a wild animal', though in that film, it was a gorilla, and here, it's a lion. It's interesting that these themes were recycled, and perhaps a testament to the power of their darkness.

I saw this film first on Public Television (the score that is still used, I believe, was developed when the film was restored in Chicago) and have always loved it in all it's raging perversity. It is beyond ironic that one of the major studios was launched on a film who's premise was that the public is a malevolent, cruel ass. We are never allowed to forget that as horrible as the villain is; the drooling, jeering, sadistic vermin in the circus crowd are worse.

The spookiness of the direction, I think, is what hooked me. All the leads are excellent and perfectly cast. This is the ultimate in melodrama, and it's drawn is such broad strokes that it's hard to imagine as a talkie.

I saw this film for the first time on TCM and I have to tell you, no movie has hooked me in like this for the longest time! I furthered my appreciation for Lon Chaney, the first TRUE film actor their was in my opinion. This was the first film made by MGM and it was the best choice they could have made.

The film concerns a scientist/inventor played by Chaney whose discoveries are claimed by someone else, a baron. He is publicly humiliated but sees an oppurtunity and becomes a circus clown as a result of it. He falls in love with one of the bareback riders at the circus but, as is common with a lot of his films, the girl loves someone else. One night, the baron who ruined his life comes to the circus and he see's his opportunity for revenge. The overall theme and/or message of this movie is "he who gets the last laugh, laughs last!"

The film is marveously done from begining to end. Chaney is brilliant as always but his performance is subtle at saddening and vicious at times, you actually root for him!

Bravo!