FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

From Scientist to Clown – He Who Gets Slapped 45
the circus but her father wants to marry her off to Baron Regnard. As the latter
is recognized by “He”, it all comes to a dramatic ending. “He” prepares the
lion’s cage, Consuelo’s father stabs him, and in the upcoming chaos, the count
and Baron Regnard try to escape, but are caught by the lion. “He” stumbles out
into the arena with a bloody piece of cloth, a heart, in his hand, and dies. This is
followed by a new bareback act, which is applauded by the audience.
The film was shot during one month, starting 17 June and, according to the
production reports, was finished no less than six weeks later. 6 It premiered on 9
November 1924 at the Capitol in New York. According to Sjöström in his “unwritten
memoirs” published in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, the
whole working process was a positive experience:
as if I had made a film during the good old times. Like at home in Sweden, in other
words. I was allowed to make my script without interference, and the shooting was
made quickly and without a hitch. In a month, the whole film was finished. 7
He Who Gets Slapped was hailed by both critics and audience, and new box
office takings were recorded at the Capitol, which celebrated its fifth anniversary:
it made “a one-day world’s record business with $15,000, a one-week’s
record business with $71,900, and a two-week’s record with $121,574. The same
success was reported throughout the country.” 8 In Sweden, however, an influential
critic like the writer Sven Stolpe discovered an American influence in the
film, and thus expressed a certain ambivalence:
He Who Gets Slapped is a strong dramatic piece, rich with intensely captivating scenes.
Some might be considered as too “American” –in any case, they would have been
unthinkable in Sjöström’s Swedish films. We think of such a horrible scene as the one
where the lion dashes into the small room and before the eyes of the dying clown
tears his two enemies to pieces! Still, the boundary between the sensational and the
tasteless is never crossed. 9
Voices in the American press were unanimously positive, the Photoplay critic
comparing it to Name the Man, which he considered a failure, but stating that
“this adaption of Leonid Andreyev’s ‘He Who Gets Slapped’ is a superb thing –
and it lifts Seastrom to the very front rank of directors, and Mordaunt Hall in
The New York Times commenting that “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”. 10 The comparison with Lubitsch,
another European, is particularly interesting as he, like Sjöström, had
come from Europe – but was discussed as an American director. The tendency
is similar in the treatment of Sjöström’s later works in the United States; apparently,
the imported directors became naturalized rather quickly. Still, in Seastrom’s
case, critics seemed to be sensitive about his past with its low-key effects,