He Who Gets Slapped is Lon Chaney as a clown who laughs while he hurts, in the first film released by the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
He Who Gets Slapped (1924), directed by Victor Sjostrom and based on Leonid Andreyev’s play, stars Chaney as Paul Beaumont, a scientist whose work is stolen by a baron, and who, humiliated, joins a circus as a clown whose act is to be slapped by other clowns. Paul falls in love with Consuelo, a bareback rider, and his clown’s smile hides a growing desire for revenge.
Chaney’s Paul is heartbreaking: a man who has turned his humiliation into a performance, and who cannot stop performing even when he is in pain. His clown makeup, with a tear that never quite dries, became an image of the film.
It is a signature role because it is Chaney’s most tragic clown, and because the film, as MGM’s first release, gave his art a new, prestigious home.