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Bo Florin points out that a famikar image in "He Who Gets Slapped" (seven reels), directed by Victor Sjostrom is referred to in the cutting continuity script as the "Symbolic Clown", the isolated character dressed in white recurrently appearing spinning his ball. Florin looks at the function of this image within the narrative as bookending sequences with a direct adress to the audience.
Albeit while blogging David Bordwell notes that the film was a great success, mostly due to the emerging talent of Lon Chaney, he does in fact give the film only a brief mention when looking at Scandinavia's Golden Age of Silent Film Drawing to a Close, which can very much be attributed to Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller both coming to America.
As film criticism often inludes audience reception on the part of the journalist-spectator, it may be worth looking at fan magazines from the first-run of the film, not so much for the public sphere of reception, which perhaps includes the art house, but for the public dimension. Picture Play Magazine wrote of Lon Chaney, "As the loveable clown in the Metro-Goldwyn feature 'He Who Gets Slapped' he gives a achara terization of rare qualities and when he dies he pulls your heart strings untill the really break."
Norma Shearer and John Gilbert starred in a second film together for the Metro-Goldwyn Picture Corporation during 1924 with Conrad Nagel, "The Snob" (seven reels), directed by Monta Bell. The film is presumed lost, with no surviving copies existing. Also presumed lost is the six reel film "The Wolf Man" in which Norma Shearer and John Gilbert starred together under the direction of Edmund Mortimer for the Fox Film Corporation during 1923. John Gilbert and Lon Chaney had starred together under the direction of Maurice Tourneur in the 1923 six reel film "While Paris Sleeps".The film is presumed lost with no surviving copies existing.
Victor Sjostrom
Victor Sjostrom
Lon Chaney
Scott Lord on the Silent Film of Greta Garbo, Mauritz Stiller, Victor Sjostrom as Victor Seastrom, John Brunius, Gustaf Molander - the Golden Age of Swedish Silent Film........Lost Films in Found Magazines, among them Victor Seastrom directing John Gilbert and Lon Chaney, the printed word offering clues to deteriorated celluloid, extratextual discourse illustrating how novels were adapted to the screen; the photoplay as a literature;how it was reviewed, audience reception perhaps actor to actor.
Saturday, August 2, 2025
Scott Lord Silent Film: Lon Chaney in He Who Gets Slapped (Victor Seastr...
Greta Garbo Victor Sjostrom Silent Film
Scott Lord on Silent Film, Scott Lord on Swedish Film, Scott Lord on Mystery Film
at
4:33:00 AM
Greta Garbo Victor Sjostrom Silent Film
Lon Chaney,
Scott Lord Victor Sjostrom,
Silent Film 1924,
Victor Seastrom,
Victor Sjostrom

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