Like That Scene in “Love and Rockets” Where They’re All Slapping That Woman: I watch “He Who Gets Slapped”

A silent movie in which Lon Chaney, Sr plays a scientist whose work is stolen by an evil Baron who’s also seducing his wife. Due to the public humiliation he becomes a clown (yes) who goes by the nom de cirque “He Who Gets Slapped.” You can guess what his routine is like. After many years of reenacting his public disgrace for the entertainment of the crowd, he may have a new chance to love and hope–but will his heart be broken yet again?

I saw this at AFI, where the music was done by the Alloy Orchestra. It was all just completely pleasing, exactly what I wanted, from the opening music which had a real “’80s horror-comedy” vibe. Think Gremlins or Beetlejuice. The music hit more serious, high-romantic notes where appropriate, but this is a circus story and evil-carnival music is what I wanted.

Everything about this worked for me. Lon Chaney can basically unhinge his jaw like a snake; he was pathetic, poignant, bizarre, unnerving, heroic, ghastly. THERE WAS A LION, like a lion on the loose, a lion rampage! And it was awesome. No holds barred. The young lovers’ subplot was maybe a bit of a distraction–whenever Chaney wasn’t on the screen you wanted to know why, and when he would return–but there were many good moments with them, like the fake cuckoo in the woods. The man-lover was quite attractive in that slightly androgynous silent-film way. Silent-era films so often have prettier men than women; the women seem hard-faced, and they’re relentlessly curveless. The men have fuller lips than the ladies. Anyway I enjoyed watching these two dance on top of a cantering horse.

I really wanted this movie to be a story about the moral or spiritual effects of humiliation. Not necessarily good effects: I was definitely down for a story about how humiliation poisons the soul, creating resentment and banked fury. But my ideal story would have had these septic elements of the soul transform, at the end, into humility and ecstatic acceptance of lowliness. And you know what? That kind of happened.

This movie could have maybe used more slapping, or more creative responses to the slapping, but otherwise A+, well done thou good and faithful clown.