"He Who Gets Slapped" was originally a Russian book by Leonid Andreyev and was translated into English and adapted for the stage by Gregory Zillboorg. It opened on Jan. 9, 1922 at the Garrick Theatre in New York and ran for 182 performances. With the exception of Consuelo (Norma Shearer's character), most of the characters in the stage production did not have names. The Lon Chaney character in the play was simply "He", and the others "a Juggler," "an Acrobat", etc. MGM did not credit Zillboorg for his theatrical adaptation.
Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg upon viewing early rushes of this production wanted to fire the film's cinematographer, Milton Moore, as they thought the photographic exposure too low and blamed Moore for incompetence. Victor Sjöström came to Moore's defense by stating he had told Moore to shoot "low", as it was essential to the plot of the story. Moore was kept on as cinematographer
George Davis, who appears in the film as a clown, was a vaudeville performer who been a clown in Europe. He appeared in U.S, French, German, English, and Italian films. He coached Lon Chaney for his role.
The first film to feature Leo the Lion roaring as MGM's logo. Designed by Howard Dietz, the logo was first used for the Goldwyn Pictures Corporation film Polly of the Circus and passed to MGM when Goldwyn merged with two other companies to form MGM.
There is no comprehensive cast list in this movie. Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer and John Gilbert are credited on the title frame; only 4 others are credited with character names in intertitles right before they first appear in the movie. The IMDb cast list credits these 7 actors in order of their names appearing onscreen.
This was the final closing night feature at the 16th San Francisco Silent Film Festival in July, 2011.
This was the first production to start filming in the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was not their first release, though; it was held until the holiday season when attendance is higher for "important" films.