He Who Gets Slapped

Paul Beaumont (Lon Chaney) is a scientist in Paris whose life's work is stolen by Baron Regnard (Marc McDermott), who also takes his wife and slaps him in public. He rejoins the world as a circus clown whose entire act is being slapped, again and again, before a laughing crowd. Victor Sjöström follows him there, where he falls for the showgirl Consuelo (Norma Shearer), and he keeps the old humiliation on his face as his job.