HE Who Gets Slapped (1924)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

HE Who Gets Slapped (1924) – V. Sjöström

Lon Chaney is absorbing and creepy as a wronged and humiliated scientist turned masochistic circus clown (yes, you read that correctly) in this early silent film from new studio MGM.  Even behind his make-up Chaney burns with an intensity that lifts the movie beyond its revenge/love triangle plot.  Swedish director Victor Sjöström (later the star of Bergman’s Wild Strawberries) keeps things moving with deft editing and some odd set-pieces.  For example, there is a recurring motif of a clown spinning a globe, no doubt reflecting the fickle vagaries of fate. Although things drag when Chaney is not on-screen and the movie shifts to Norma Shearer and John Gilbert professing their love (even while her father sells her to the wicked Baron, ironically the man who stole Chaney’s scientific ideas and slapped him in the first place, in front of the Academy no less), the conclusion is effectively downbeat.  If only the weird business of the slaps was foregrounded a bit more, this could have achieved greater cult status.

The Navigator (1924)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Navigator (1924) – D. Crisp & B. Keaton

Early Buster Keaton two-reeler that is sporadically funny, picking up speed as it goes along.  Keaton accidentally finds himself on an abandoned ship, alone with the girl he hopes to marry, who has also accidentally gotten on board the ghost ship (pushed out to sea as part of espionage). The two muddle out how to cook a meal, find bunks to sleep in, and fix a leak under the ship (which involves Buster in a real deep sea diving suit that eventually fills with water…of course).  They are nearly rescued and nearly captured by cannibals.  Part of the thrill offered by any of Keaton’s comedies (short or long) is from knowing that he invents all his own gags and does all his own stunts, which often involve a high level of acrobatic skill in the service of looking clumsy as hell.  Not really up there with The General or Sherlock Jr. (although others seem to think so) but damn fine nonetheless.