Biographer Robert G. Anderson, in his his volume Faces, Forms and Films, the artistry of Lon Chaney, describes the portrayals made by the Man of A Thousand Faces, including thos in which he used little or no make up. "For roles in which Lon Chaney appeared without make up are as intersting as those in which he appeared with it. He was always in character; his own personality was subordinated. His mannerisms, guestures, expressions belonged to the character; as did the dress, the detective in 'While the City Sleeps' though neatly dressed, was probably too absorbed in his job to notice the spot on his vest, probably the result of a hurried breakfast." Still, the diegetic world being visual, one might ask if the spot had merely been placed the by the director as a reference for the cameraman.
Advertisements placed in magazines by M.G.M promoted the film as being "Rated by trade consensus as the best Lon Chaney draw of past few years."
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Scholar Bo Florin points out that a famiar image in "He Who Gets Slapped" (seven reels), directed by Victor Sjostrom is referred to in the cutting continuity script as the "Symbolic Clown", the isolated character dressed in white recurrently appearing spinning his ball. Florin looks at the function of this image within the narrative as bookending sequences with a direct adress to the audience. Albeit while blogging David Bordwell notes that the film was a great success, mostly due to the emerging talent of Lon Chaney, he does in fact give the film only a brief mention when looking at Scandinavia's Golden Age of Silent Film Drawing to a Close, which can very much be attributed to Victor Sjostrom and Mauritz Stiller both coming to America.
Begnt Forslund compares Sjostrom's direction of "He Who Gets Slapped" with the direction of "The Scarlet Letter", the former being 'more personal, and also more cinematically exciting' while the latter can be recognized as a return to the type of film that Sjostrom made in Sweden, to which he returned. Not incidentally, it was the Swedish actor Gosta Ekmann who had portrayed the Lon Chaney character in "Han som far orilarna" on stage during 1926 in Stockholm at the Oscateatern.
As film criticism often inludes audience reception on the part of the journalist-spectator, it may be worth looking at fan magazines from the first-run of the film, not so much for the public sphere of reception, which perhaps includes the art house, but for the public dimension. Picture Play Magazine wrote of Lon Chaney, "As the loveable clown in the Metro-Goldwyn feature 'He Who Gets Slapped' he gives a achara terization of rare qualities and when he dies he pulls your heart strings untill the really break."
Norma Shearer and John Gilbert starred in a second film together for the Metro-Goldwyn Picture Corporation during 1924 with Conrad Nagel, "The Snob" (seven reels), directed by Monta Bell. The film is a lost silent film, with no surviving copies existing. Also presumed lost is the six reel film "The Wolf Man" in which Norma Shearer and John Gilbert starred together under the direction of Edmund Mortimer for the Fox Film Corporation during 1923. John Gilbert and Lon Chaney had starred together under the direction of Maurice Tourneur in the 1923 six reel film "While Paris Sleeps".The film is presumed lost with no surviving copies existing.
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Directed by Swedish Silent Film director George af Klercker for Hasselblads Fotografiska during 1917, "I Morkets Borje" was phtotgraphed by Swedish cinematographer Carl Gustav Florin and starred Sybil Smolawa with Helge Kihilberg. That year George af Klercker also directed the film "The Suburban Vicar". Silent Film Swedish Silent Film