He Who Gets Slapped (1924)

Starring: Lon Chaney
Grade: B+

There’s one scene where Lon Chaney has this disgusted expression on his face when listening in to Consuelo’s conversation with Bezano and for a split second, I swear to you he looks exactly like Tommy Lee Jones.

Tell me I’m wrong.

Summary

We open with a caption stating, “In the grim comedy of life, it has been wisely said that the last laugh is the best -“.

Next, we see a clown spinning a globe. The clown transforms into unknown scientist Paul Beaumont (Chaney). In the village of Baron Regnard (Marc McDermott) in Paris, Beaumont labored to prove his “startling theories on the Origin of Mankind”. For years, Beaumont struggled alone in poverty until the Baron (Marc McDermott) – suddenly invested in his work – had invited him into his home. Beaumont also loves his girlfriend Marie (Ruth King), though it’s clear from the start that Marie and the Baron have their eyes on each other, as we see the sexual tension between them during their chess match. Just then, they are interrupted by Beaumont, who has just now managed to prove all of his theories. He’s officially ready to go before the Academy of Sciences. He’s about to be famous, and he tells Marie it’s all for her. He thanks the Baron, and Marie tells Beaumont that the Baron will make all the arrangements for the Academy. She just wants him to go and rest. Once he locks up his theories in a cabinet, he leaves with Marie. That night, Marie comes back with a key and hands it over to the Baron. The Baron steals Beaumont’s work and Marie kisses him.

The fix is in.

Sometime after, Beaumont goes before the Academy of Sciences for judgment upon his work. Knowing that he entrusted all the arrangements with the influential Baron, he’s shocked to see the Baron take credit for all of Beaumont’s discoveries in front of all the officials there, not acknowledging Beaumont whatsoever. After all of the applause from everyone there, Beaumont shushes everyone and goes up to the stand. He calls the Baron out in front of everyone, giving him one more chance to tell the truth when a higher-up official stops Beaumont from going any further. Sadly, the Baron says Beaumont is insane and is a “starving student” he hired as an “assistant”. Beaumont angrily grabs him and tries to threaten him, but the Baron feels no remorse and slaps Beaumont for his troubles. This evokes laughter from the crowd watching and Beaumont is humiliated. He is then taken away as everyone continues to laugh at him. Later, he goes to Marie and looks to be consoled. The Baron walks into the room and she smiles at him. This is when Beaumont realizes she duped him too, further adding to the downward spiral of his life. He even laughs for a moment before covering it up. To add insult to injury, Marie even tells Beaumont he possesses nothing to love, making fun of his looks and studies and how he’s given her nothing. Once she slaps him, he laughs again for a moment and is confused by it. After Marie calls him a fool and a clown, Beaumont sits down and laughs to himself, realizing his life is in shambles. He takes his life’s work and throws it at the globe in the study, knocking it over.

Five years later, Beaumont now works for a circus near Paris as a clown, with the name of “HE-Who Gets Slapped”. In his act, he gets slapped for laughs and he counts them, something he came up with himself. Tricaud (Ford Sterling), the man who hired him, applauds him as they all get ready backstage. He lets Beaumont know that he’ll be becoming famous soon. Last night, he got slapped over a hundred times. His act is catching on. One of the other performers at this circus is daredevil horseback rider Bezano (John Gilbert). He sees some kid performer being yelled at by his coach during rehearsals. Once the guy ties a rope to his ankles to perfect his form, Bezano goes over to them, yells at the coach, and unties the kid. Following this, he stumbles into a room to meet the newest recruit of the circus and daughter of Count Mancini (Tully Marshall), Consuelo (Norma Shearer). She’s been a great success in Italy as a bareback rider. The plan is for Bezano and Consuelo to be a new act together. Bezano is all for it because he’s clearly in love with her. Elsewhere, Marie sees promotion for the circus and makes fun of the popularity of HE, not knowing it is Beaumont. Sometime after, Beaumont listens in on a conversation between Bezano and Consuelo, where Bezano worries as to how little he sees of her and how every day she goes with her father and some “strange gentlemen”. She admits that her father’s friend is a “rich gentleman” and may be someone who will ask her to marry him. Bezano pleads with her to consider him instead. Though she doesn’t swear off this other guy, she agrees to spend the day with him tomorrow and he’s elated. Once he leaves and Beaumont looks disgusted, Consuelo offers to help Beaumont sew the heart-shaped accessory onto his costume since he’s holding it in his hand. He accepts and as they talk, with her acknowledging how famous he’s becoming and how he’ll probably leave for a bigger circus, Beaumont says he’s happy here and wants to stay.

We can also see that he starts to take notice of Consuelo’s beauty during this conversation. He gifts her this clay heart he made. Though she loves it, she instead puts it in the pocket of his costume behind the heart she sewed on.

Sometime after, the Baron attends a showing of the circus to see the famous HE. During the performance, we see how Beaumont imagines the team of clown performers alongside him as the officials from the Academy laughing at him and how he uses it to fuel his energy in the performance. As he gets slapped over and over again, his eyes glance over and he sees the Baron. It enrages him, but the performance continues, and he gets slapped a hundred more times as he flips out and everyone laughs at him, not realizing the pain in his body language. To end the first part of the performance, he’s taken backstage bounded and gagged. As the crowd cheers, he’s thrown back out in front of everyone, and Tricaud takes the clay heart from his costume and buries it in the dirt. The crowd is loving it, but Beaumont is furious. Tricaud reminds him that he’s supposed to play dead though, so he lies back on the ground as the other clowns show up and put together a fake funeral procession. Again, the crowd is laughing at every bit of this for some reason. Eventually, the performance ends, and Beaumont finally gets backstage to collect himself. Sadly, he’s brought right back to reality, seeing the Baron approach Consuelo. She’s not really feeling his advances, and Bezano is angry about it as well. Even so, it doesn’t go any further because Consuelo and Bezano have to go do their act. Beaumont is infuriated seeing the presence of the Baron and goes over to him in character as HE. He knocks off the Baron’s top hat and smashes it back on him. The Baron responds by saying he hates clowns, but Beaumont retorts with how he hates Barons. He then goes out and helps with Consuelo and Bezano’s performance to the delight of the crowd.

After the show, Count Mancini tells Consuelo that the Baron wants to take them home and though she goes with, she’s not too happy about it. Beaumont goes back to the dirt circle he performed in and digs up the clay heart they buried during the performance and puts it in his pocket.

The trouble in Beaumont’s life is only starting to creep up again because of that bastard Baron reemerging in his life.

Despite this film coming out in 1924, the intertwined entanglements these characters find themselves in are reminiscent of an MTV reality show from the early 2000s. Both Beaumont and the Baron start to fall for Consuelo, though the selfish Baron is still with Beaumont’s ex Marie. At the same time, Consuelo actually likes Bezano, though her father Count Mancini wants her to marry the Baron. It’s distressing to say the least.

As you would imagine, this is all dead set on a pathway to tragedy.

My Thoughts:

A tragedy, a psychological study, and a depressing, yet atmospheric delight, He Who Gets Slapped is another excellent Lon Chaney vehicle that reminds the masses that during this period of time in Hollywood, “The Man of a Thousand Faces” couldn’t be touched.

The entire film is centered around the downfall of Paul Beaumont, a poverty-stricken scientist whose life falls apart in spectacular fashion after finally managing his magnum opus. The devastation is so cataclysmic, he never fully recovers from the incident. Because of this relatively short event in this person’s life, the entire trajectory of Beaumont’s life is changed. This disaster is how we are introduced to the world of He Who Gets Slapped. It’s a cold one in which a scientist who works to prove his theories that can validate his life’s work is thrown to the side in an instant by the people he loves and trusts. Everything is taken away from him as soon as he’s finally done, with the Baron taking credit for the ideas and taking his woman from him as well. Given how hard Beaumont has worked in his studies and how much he loved Marie, a mental breakdown is entirely understandable. How could anyone respond with strength to the back-to-back blows as big as the one’s Beaumont faces here? The caption couldn’t have put it any better in that “the agony of that night exhausted his power to suffer”. Think about how broken you have to be following a travesty of a life event like this one. Beaumont is so ruined by this that he has nothing else left to give. He lost everything in a matter of hours. It would take years to recover if he attempted to pursue the same life. Because of this steep uphill battle, his emotions are thrown completely out of whack, and he starts to laugh, thinking about how bad things are and replaying the events over and over again in his head (essentially for the rest of his short life). He doesn’t know how to cope with such devasting misfortune, so he internally loses it.

Again, this is only the first act. Even so, Chaney is breathtaking right from the start.

The reality of the situation is what makes it even more heart-wrenching in that truthfully, Beaumont can’t do anything about it. With no status, no capital, and no one to back him up personally or professionally, the poor man has to start from the bottom. Because of this, he gives up on that life. Can you blame him? How can you put trust into anyone ever again? There’s no point. This is where his life and career trajectory changes for good. The scientist goes into a full breakdown and becomes a circus clown, with his whole act being based on the experience he had that fateful day when he lost everything in front of the Academy of Sciences. This introspective look into what Beaumont has become internally and externally over this five-year period is a fascinating sight to behold. On one hand, it’s clear that Beaumont was destined for some sort of greatness regardless, finding a purpose in his life that he would not have had if he stayed a scientist. A pessimist may say that his purpose leads him to being a supporting player in someone else’s “main character” life, but you could argue this point about virtually any tragedy, or even other Chaney films like Laugh, Clown, Laugh.

Nevertheless, Beaumont finds greatness by still managing to become famous despite all that life has thrown at him. Though it’s not as a scientist like he may have wanted initially, he gains major traction as a clown, with his act becoming popular enough to where he could join an even bigger circus. Though the audience can feel the pathos in what Beaumont has become because we know he was destined for something more meaningful, there is still enough of a silver lining in his current success that throws him a much-needed bone. Even so, we can see something is off about the former scientist. With Chaney’s magnificent performance, we can see little inklings of a performer about to crack. Yes, he’s happy on the surface, but the true Beaumont is still a very broken man hidden deep in the depths of his current psyche. Never being taken seriously by anyone he encounters because of his persona will tear apart anyone, though it’s not something he would admit outright because his feelings of what happened at the Academy would only boil to the surface because of how it parallels what HE has become. Beaumont hides his inner self, trying to become HE in both his performance and in his real life. In fact, you may notice that every single person he encounters once he joins the circus refers to him as HE instead of his real name. This only adds to the character study of our protagonist and shows how complex his situation is. In the second half of his life, we aren’t sure where HE ends, and Beaumont begins. This is why we know the real Beaumont is still torn to shreds and still exists because HE has overtaken his life. We know he’s in there somewhere, but no one knows of his previous life because he doesn’t let anyone else in.

They all refer to him as HE, and it’s like he’s living life in this different skin he has created. Even when he tries to be real with Consuelo and profess his love for her, she passes it off as a joke and SLAPS HIM! It’s a startling moment, but it also shows how our protagonist is a lost cause. Despite all he’s been through, he can’t break the spell of being the joke of his own life. To try and recover, Beaumont tells her he’s HE and he should never be taken seriously, but it’s obvious that this is the turning point of no return. Regardless of this fact, it also shows us how mentally strong Beaumont has become and what he is made of. In the face of losing everything and never getting the love he wanted, he still pushed to be in front of the line to stop the evil he knew existed. This is a level of strength not seen in any amount of musculature.

As we have seen countless times, evil never takes a rest. In life, there are so many people one will encounter that have nefarious intentions or ulterior motives. At some point though, there is a breaking point. Someone down the line will fight back. Beaumont accepted it the first time because he had no other choice. Now, with his presence in Consuelo’s situation being divine intervention of sorts, he is given a second chance to stop evil from winning and he refuses to concede even if he is outnumbered. He’s the last hope to save this woman’s life. The sad part is, she’ll never know his sacrifice. It doesn’t matter though because our hero knows what he has to do. With this, the fire emerges within him, and Beaumont in the midst of it all finds his purpose in the last stages of his life. Though it’s also a slice of revenge, it’s still very much the closure he needs to put an end to this previous stage of his life. He had to cross paths with the Baron again. It was destiny for his own sake regardless of how he responds. What further justifies things is that he doesn’t owe Consuelo anything. He was turned down by her and she didn’t even believe him when he tells her the Baron’s intentions. Beaumont could have walked away and watched this young woman’s life being thrown away, but he had to step in. This is the mark of a true hero and why the third act is so mighty in its presentation. Though it’s a graphic ending that only brings power to vindicates vengeful intentions, the passion and intensity stemming from the face of our disrespected hero reached a necessary fever pitch that didn’t feel bitter in the slightest. In fact, it felt right. Once the laughter towards him started, it never stopped. A breaking point was inevitable. It just so happened to take place at the perfect time. The lowly man who has been pushed around from everyone and everything decides to step in and take a stand for others that can’t, reacting in the heat of the moment to his surroundings while dealing with an undiagnosed bit of mental instability at the same time. In doing so, it creates for an awesome moment that truly makes the film the arresting tale it is.

In the first act, Beaumont was furious with the Baron and threatened him, but the untouchable villain saw right through it and even dared him with a slap to the face. This is why the first slap is such a striking moment. Beaumont was in an emotional state, a weakened one at that. Because of this, the shock is internalized, and the humiliation freezes him in the heat of the moment. It’s a very telling scene but seeing the viciousness coming from Beaumont in this third act completes the arc, as he’s now this ruthless hero clown ready for a fight defending a woman’s honor and his own personal integrity in a climactic duel that completes the story on a high note. Going along with this, I’m so glad he handled things in such a cinematic manner rather than the bleak ending of the Russian play that the film was based on. Including a lion and letting Beaumont get some sort of closure is much preferred over two suicides and a murder.

Classic Russia.

He Who Gets Slapped is beautifully filmed, with a very good score and striking cinematography. Just the lone scene of Beaumont standing alone in the circus tent picking up the buried heart and the lights getting shut out on him was a scene worth watching in-context. Accompanied by a few notes from a piano, you can feel the loneliness of the character and the symbolism in regard to what his heart has been through, as well as what it foreshadows for his bitter end. In addition, the transitional scenes of the clown messing with the globe and the later transitions of the mini-clowns around the ring of the globe is mesmerizing. It’s creepy as hell in its presentation, but you can’t look away. The final shot of the clowns tossing the body off the ring was a chef’s kiss.

Though the chaos of the climax may be too violent for some for Beaumont to walk off unscathed in the eyes of the audience, the level of evil he faces here is unmatched by few non-supervillain antagonists. The Baron is about as selfish and cold-hearted as one could be. The man shows no feelings towards screwing everyone he encounters to benefit himself. Not only does he take Beaumont’s ideas, along with his potential income from it, he steals Marie from him. Then, he slaps the poor bastard for trying to get credit. Seeing him try everything again years later with Consuelo makes you absolutely loathe him and when Beaumont is seeding with anger like never before at the sight of him, you can feel that energy within. How can you not want to fight someone like this, a man who can ruin any live he comes into contact with and doesn’t care in the slightest on who it affects? When discussing Consuelo’s relationship rights with Count Mancini like she’s a trade accessory in a professional sports league, the equally despicable Mancini has to practically convince him to marry Consuelo first, implying that he just wanted to get permission to pipe her and leave. The man is terrible in every sense of the word. Adding to his all-around evilness, he relents and then breaks up with Marie by handing her a check and telling her to take a hike. Though this was kind of funny because Marie was just as much of a piece of shit as he was, it goes to show you the lengths the Baron will go for some pussy. Speaking of evil, his tandem with Mancini only adds to it. Mancini basically uses his daughter as a sales pitch, having the audacity to goad this known asshole into taking his daughter by saying with a Cheshire Cat-like grin, “Think about what a bride she’ll make”.

Are you kidding me? This is evil that begs to be stopped in its tracks. If violence is included, it’s only a plus. Though Beaumont may not be the most traditional movie hero, he is truly the only hope that sees through these awful people.

Guys, Mancini basically sold his daughter for a thousand francs. I have no shame in agreeing with the mad HE. Send in the lion on these fuckers!

Bezano’s inclusion did stall some momentum. Though his presence was necessary in creating further divide between Consuelo and the other men who are after her, the performance was pretty average, and the character was underwritten and underutilized. Despite him being the man Consuelo loves, he was a total afterthought in the third act. How he doesn’t factor into the chaotic climax in some sort of way seems odd. All in all, the total mishandling of Bezano is the only thing that really stalled the film, with a prime example being the overly long picnic sequence between him and Consuelo. It noticeably dragged. Pacing and momentum are vital to a silent movie’s success, especially to a modern viewer, so this was one notable thing that didn’t quite click. Also, I can’t help but agree with some critics in saying that the ending is a bit predictable and drawn out when it doesn’t need to be. We can see the final five minutes coming from a mile away, but they milk it for every penny. Shortening the Bezano’s sequences and tightening up the ending would have benefitted the overall production greatly. In any case, what picks up the slack is the outstanding talent that is Lon Chaney. Let me tell you, no one can convey horror, depression, and pathos in their face, especially during the silent era, quite like Chaney. He’s an absolute marvel in the starring role. The way he transforms from pitied scientist, to cracked depressive, to loving performer, to vengeful clown is extraordinary work.

Though the Academy Awards wouldn’t exist for a few more years, if it did exist in 1924, Chaney gets Best Actor without question.

He Who Gets Slapped is more than just a tale of a tragic clown. In fact, it’s far from it. It’s a look at how cruel life can treat the kindhearted, how much a soul can take, how trauma can shape a life, and the importance of getting the last laugh (in more ways than one). While holding a makeshift heart in a blood-soaked hand, Lon Chaney adds to his legend with another fully realized performance that makes this tragedy hard to forget even with some of its noted problems.