He Who Gets Slapped (1924)

Cast:
Lon Chaney ... Paul Beaumont, aka HE
Norma Shearer ... Consuelo
John Gilbert ... Bezano
Tully Marshall ... Count Mancini
Marc McDermott ... Baron Regnard
Ford Sterling ... Tricaud
Harvey Clark ... Briquet
Paulette Duval ... Zinida
Ruth King ... Maria Beaumont
Clyde Cook ... A Clown
Brandon Hurst ... A Clown
George Davis ... A Clown

Directed by Victor Seastrom.
Produced by Irving Thalberg.
Based on the play by Leonid Andreyev.
Cinematography by Milton Moore.
Film Editing by Hugh Wynn.
Art Direction by Cedric Gibbons.
Costume Design by Sophie Wachner.

Released December 22, 1924.
A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture.

Box Office Information
Cost of Production: $172,000
Domestic Gross: $493,000
Forgein Gross: $388,000
Total Gross: $881,000
Profit: $349,000

Background:



Webmaster's Review:

“In the grim comedy of life, it has been wisely said that the last laugh is the best----”

We first see a clown laughing and spinning a ball. It turns into a shot of Paul Beaumont, “an unknown scientist, labored to prove his starling theories on the Origin of Mankind,” in Baron Rengnard‘s home. What Paul doesn’t know is that the Baron---who has allowed Paul to live with him to complete his studies---is less interested in his ideas on the origin of mankind and more interested in sleeping with Paul’s wife, Maria.

Late that night, Maria sneaks into the room where Paul conducts his studies. The Baron is in there, and the two begin to kiss.

Before an Academy of Scientists, the Baron begins to make the speech regarding Paul’s finds. Paul realizes that the Baron is telling the scientists his work, but taking the credit for himself, and runs up onto the stage to call him out in front of everyone. As the members of the Academy look on with interest, the Baron extends his arm, and slaps Paul across the face. Everyone else breaks out into a hysteria, laughing at Paul‘s humiliation.

It’s a mental downfall from there.

Consulting his wife, he is shocked to also hear that she finds him repulsive, and that it is the Baron whom she really loves (talk about having a shitty day). Marie calls him a clown (and a fool), and Paul wonders further into his lab. He repeats what she says, then bursts into an insane laughter. He throws his plans across the room, knocking the globe over, and looses his mind entirely.

It’s a shot of that creepy clown again, which transforms into a long shot of a circus.

“Years had passed,” a title card reads, “Paul Beaumont was forgotten---but the laugh was still his. For the brilliant scientist had, with a supreme gesture of contempt, made himself a common clown.”

Paul has joined a circus near Paris, and has emerged as the star in its most popular act “HE---who gets slapped.” Paul, of course, is HE.

We first meet Bezano, a bareback rider, practicing his riding tricks. He spots a beautiful young girl named Consuelo, who is being flaunted by her father to the manager of the circus. They agree to hire her, and she will appear opposite Bezano in his act.

Marie, toasting a drink with her lover, looks outside of her window, to see a big light-up clown being slapped across the face. “How stupid people are,” she says, “to watch a clown who allows himself to be slapped.” What she doesn’t know is that clown is her ex-husband.

Another shot of that creepy clown spinning the ball again…

Outside of her dressing room, Consuelo tells Bezano about a rich man her father plans to marry her off to. Clearly Bezano loves her, and HE watches the two from a distance, because HE loves her, too. When Bezano leaves, and she sews the heart onto his costume, he is taken in by her beauty and charm (and how beautiful Norma Shearer appears with her hair down).

She tells him how he is becoming a major star, and that---even if he is happy here---he should find something better for himself.

In the audience that night is none other than the Baron, whom Paul recognizes shortly after he begins his act. Though the Baron doesn’t recognize him right away, Paul, trying to call him out, is cut off by the slaps from the other clowns in his act.

Backstage, Consuelo’s father introduces her to the Baron. HE becomes enraged. Not only because he loves her, and this is the second woman he could lose to the Baron, but because of the selfishness behind the introduction. Her father, a miser, is attempting to marry his daughter off to a rich man so he can get the money. To the father’s surprise, however, the Baron tells him that he could never marry a bareback rider (please!).

The next day, Consuelo and Bezano spend an entire day together in a park. They have a picnic, though neither one is hungry, and flirt, laugh, kiss, and chase each other around. After, they confess their love for each other.

Another clown shot, again.

The Baron is manipulated by Consuelo’s father to ask for her hand in marriage. “Think of what a bride she’ll make…” He leaves Maria behind for the younger, more vibrant Consuelo, who has no idea any of this is going on.

Backstage another night, HE confesses his own love for Consuelo. She thinks he is kidding, and slaps him across the face. It’s heartbreaking to watch her burst into laughter, and watch him follow as a nervous response. Under the mask, he’s humiliated, again.

The Baron and Consuelo’s father interrupt. Her father announces the marriage plans, much to Consuelo’s disappointment and shock---and HE’s rage.


HE runs into the room where the Baron and Consuelo’s father are celebrating the announcement. He irritates them just for the hell of it, then begins to give them a real piece of reality. The father pushes him into a room which has an enraged lion in a cage. HE moves the cage door towards the door to the room, and opens it.

The lion claws the two men to death, though before Consuelo’s father is killed, he stabs HE with a sword. The rest of circus discover what has happened, and HE dies in the arms of Consuelo, his one and only love, who is now free to marry Bezano, the love of her life.

Is there a need to write that Lon Chaney is excellent in this movie? I’ve seen only a handful of his work---The Hunchback of Notre Dom (1923), The Monster (1925), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), The Unknown, and The Unholy Three (1930)---but I’ve been in inspired by his dramatic talent and versatility. Aside from the tricks he could pull with a makeup kit, he had dramatic powers which rival that of Marlon Brando and Montgomery Cliff. He wasn’t afraid to be the outcast; the scum of the Earth everyone seems to step on, and it was his acceleration in such roles which made him the top star of his time.

Two scenes with Chaney stand out in particular. The first is the one where he consults his wife after having his one-time friend stab him in the back by introducing Chaney’s ideas, but claiming them as his own. This is followed by the ultimate backstab, Chaney’s finding out that very night that the same “friend” who robbed him of credit has now robbed him of a wife.

Chaney’s second big scene is his revenge. He’s gotten the last laugh, but now has to pay for his own revenge, too. The punishment is the ultimate one, his own life. But unlike McDermott and Tully Marshall (Consuelo’s father), Chaney dies a hero.

Norma Shearer is especially beautiful in this one. It is---aside from The Student Prince (1927)---the ingénue of all the ingénues she ever played. But when that beautiful, thick, curly hair is down beyond shoulder length, she really shows her natural beauty. Her feet, however, appear too large for her body, and she is cross-eyed in the scene where she waits for John Gilbert before their picnic in the park. But her acting is a step up from her previous surviving effort in Lucretia Lombard (1923). Unfortunately, until her movies made between those two titles turn up in some remote archive, this all we have to judge her progress by.

John Gilbert doesn’t have a big role. He is the love interest, and Marc McDermott, as the Baron, has a meatier part which steals the spotlight from Gilbert.

Chaney, Shearer, and McDermott are the stars of He Who Gets Slapped.



Vintage Reviews:

At the Capitol this week there is a picture which defies one to write about it without indulging in superlatives. It is a shadow drama so beautifully told, so flawlessly directed that we imagine that it will be held up as a model by all producers. Throughout its length there is not an instant of ennui, not a second one wants to lose; it held the spectators spellbound yesterday afternoon, the last fade-out being the signal for a hearty round of applause. This celluloid masterpiece is Victor Seastrom's picturization of Leonid Andreyev's play, "He Who Gets Slapped," which was presented before the footlights in January, 1922, with Richard Bennett in the principal rôle.

The more enlightened producers were enthusiastic over Mr. Seastrom's "The Stroke of Midnight," which was at the same time considered too depressing to be a financial success over here. Nevertheless, this and other productions caused the management of Goldwyn Pictures, Ltd., to engage this director to make pictures in California. Mr. Seastrom left his native heath, Sweden, and his first American-made production was Sir Hall Caine's "Name the Man," a lugubrious story filled with anachronisms. A friend of the director predicted at the time that, although he did not like "Name the Man," Mr. Seastrom eventually would turn out a production which would startle the film world.

Undoubtedly the story is half the battle with an accomplished director, and in "He Who Gets Slapped" Mr. Seastrom obviously realized that he had his great opportunity. He selected his cast with punctiliousness, choosing Lon Chancy, who will be remembered for his work in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and other films, to play the part of the heart-broken scientist who became a clown. Never in his efforts before the camera has Mr. Chaney delivered such a marvelous performance as he does as this character. He is restrained in his acting, never overdoing the sentimental situations, and is guarded in his make-up.

The first flash on the screen shows a clown twisting a colored ball, which gradually fades out into the figure of Beaumont, the scientist, gazing upon a revolving globe. There are many such clever touches in different chapters of this absorbing narrative which deals with the ultimate revenge of the scientist-clown, merely known as "He Who Gets Slapped," on the man who stole the glory for his work and also his wife. You see the student arguing with Baron Regnard before a gallery of aged notables, and suddenly the nobleman slaps the scientist's face. The old men rock in their mirth, and this, coupled with the loss of his wife, spurs the student to become a clown with a small traveling French circus. As the principal fun-maker, with a score of other painted-face clowns, he is seen making audiences roar with laughter by being slapped. At that time he had no thought of revenge, but one day he sees the Baron in a seat. The sight of what happened to him in front of the scientists comes before his eyes. One sees the clown fading into the gallery of wise old men, and then again the clowns are shown.

There is the dressing room of the circus, and the pretty daughter of an impecunious Count. The girl (Norma Shearer) soon falls in love with her partner in her riding act, Bezano (John Gilbert). The Count wants her to wed the Baron, and the scheming is discovered by He, the clown. He is weak in fistic encounters, so coolly arranges for a terrible death for the Count and the Baron. He loves the girl, Consuelo, too. She had stitched on his dummy heart night after night of the show. You see him move the lion's cage up to the door of the little ante-room, which is all ready for a wine supper. Then he enters himself by another door, and in an encounter with the girl's father heis stabbed by the Count's sword-stick. He grips his breast tightly to stay the flow of blood, and gradually crawls toward the door, which has only to be opened to release the wild beast. There is wonderful suspense in this stretch, and one is stirred when one sees the startled lion spring through the open door.

Mr. Seastrom has directed this dramatic story with all the genius of a Chaplin or a Lubitsch, and he has accomplished more than they have in their respective works, "A Woman of Paris" and "The Marriage Circle," as he had, what they did not have, a stirring, dramatic story to put into pictures.

Miss Shearer is charming as Consuelo, and Mr. Gilbert, who gave such an excellent account of himself in "His Hour," is a sympathetic sweetheart. But the player who is entitled to honors only second to Mr. Chaney is Marc McDermott, who takes full advantage of the strength of his rôle. Tully Marshall is splendid as the scapegrace Count.

For dramatic value and a faultless adaptation of the play, this is the finest production we have yet seen.
Written by Mordaunt Hall. Published November 10, 1924 in the New York Times.