New Picture

He Who Gets Slapped. It had been venturesome to suggest that the stage version of He could be ameliorated, or even approached by another, least of all by a cinema version. Perhaps that cannot be said now. Yet if the screen was ever moving, if producers have ever credited their patrons with perception sufficient to be delighted by suggestion, by nuance of lighting, gesture and stage-composition, for the expression of valid emotions, then these things have come to pass again. Playwright Andreyev has Victor Seastrom to thank for directing, Lon Chancy for acting, a highly authentic recreation. "He," one recalls, is a much-slapped circus clown, beloved by the world only for a buffoonery which he wrings from the shattered, poignant remnant of a life known to none but himself.