In 1924, MGM released its first film. Directed by Victor Sjostrom and based on a play by Leonid Andreyev, He Who Gets Slapped (1924) starred Lon Chaney as Paul Beaumont, a scientist whose lifelong work is stolen by his patron, Baron Regnard (Marc McDermott)—aided by Beaumont's wife, with whom he is having an affair. Traumatized by the laughter of fellow scientists when the Baron contemptuously smacks his face, Beaumont joins the circus and assumes the identity of “He Who Gets Slapped,” a masochistic circus clown famous for being hit countless times in a single performance. Decades later, the popular reference work The MGM Story would describe the work succinctly as “a risky choice for the studio's debut” (Eames 1975: 10), for obvious reasons. Yet even as the film appears as a curious counterpart to MGM's subsequent productions, so renowned for their glamor, it nonetheless establishes themes that Thalberg would explore for the rest of his career: the nature of spectacle and artistic identity; thwarted romance; the tension between private desires and public expression. He Who Gets Slapped also captures Thalberg's developing concerns as a producer. In addition to highlighting three stars who would thrive under his tenure—Chaney, Shearer, and Gilbert—the film introduced Thalberg's broader fascination with the capaciousness of the performing body itself; how it could transform or reinvent itself to suit the demands of a particular role or narrative situation. He Who Gets Slapped represents, then, not so much “a risky choice” as a declaration of the risks that this new studio was willing to take under Thalberg's guidance.

With its exploration of passion and creativity in a carnivalesque setting, the film illuminates much about the origins of MGM itself. When Thalberg first allied himself with Louis B. Mayer Productions in 1923, the studio shared its production lot with a zoo. The Mission Road compound was owned by Colonel William N. Selig, an entrepreneur of early films who had developed the Selig Polyscope Company to compete with Thomas Edison's productions (Schulberg 1981: 117).