Jon Mirsalis on PianoVictor Sjostrom (Seastrom in the U.S.) was one of the great filmdirectors of the silent period, in Sweden and in this country. He isprobably better known to American audiences for his Swedish film PhantomChariot and his Lillian Gish classics The Scarlet Letter and The Wind,than for He Who Gets Slapped. Yet in this film we find Lon Chaney in oneof his finest performances, without the accustomed bizarre make-up orastounding physical stunts. Chaney is a clown in a French travelingcircus who achieves a spectacular revenge against the man who cheatedhim out of a brilliant career as a scientist. Sjostrom's remarkablestylistic facility is everywhere in evidence, with the circus scenesbordering on the expressionistic, in contrast to the naturalism of theexposition elsewhere. The film is dazzling in its white-on-whitetechniques, and very close to the spirit of Bergman's Naked Night in itstale of humiliation in a circus setting, and by virtue of the subtletyand sensitivity of Chaney's acting.