There's nothing makes people laugh so hard as seeing someone else get slapped!
Have decided to kick off 2011 with a silent film that I've had on tape since TCM showed it back in August. That would be 1924's He Who Gets Slapped, which Lon Chaney made in between The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera. Based on the play by Leonid Andreyev, the film was co-adapted and directed by Victor Sjöström and stars Chaney as a down-on-his-luck scientist whose work is stolen by a slimy baron (Marc McDermott) who proceeds to steal Chaney's beloved wife (Ruth King) as well. Not only does Chaney suffer the indignity of being slapped by McDermott in front of the Academy of the Sciences, but he's also slapped by his unfaithful wife when he discovers her infidelity. (Shouldn't that be the other way around?) From there he becomes a full-fledged masochist, transforming himself into a circus clown whose entire act revolves around being slapped silly (sometimes receiving as many as a hundred slaps a night).
The bulk of the film is spent in and around the circus where Chaney is the star attraction (and which is populated by a veritable bevy of supporting clowns). There he allows himself to fall in love with an Italian bareback rider (Norma Shearer) who's torn between daredevil rider John Gilbert and an unseen benefactor her conniving father, a destitute count (Tully Marshall), wants to marry her off to. When Chaney discovers that the rich man in question is none other than McDermott the stage is set for revenge most sweet, but only after he is able to reveal his true identity. After all, as the opening title reads, "In the grim comedy of life, it has been wisely said that the last laugh is the best."