The Silent Films of Harry Langdon (1923-1928)

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Harry Langdon was a silent screen comedian unlike any other. Slower in pace, more studied in movement, and quirkier in nature, Langdon challenged the comic norm by offering comedies that were frequently edgy and often surreal. After a successful run of short comedies with Mack Sennett, Langdon became his own producer at First National Pictures, making such features as Tramp Tramp Tramp, The Strong Man, and Long Pants before becoming his own director for Three's a Crowd, The Chaser, and Heart Trouble.

In The Silent Films of Harry Langdon (1923-1928), film historian James Neibaur examines Langdon's strange, fascinating work during the silent era, when he made landmark films that were often ahead of their time. Extensively reviewing the comedian's silent screen work film by film, Neibaur makes the case that Langdon should be accorded the same lofty status as his contemporaries: Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. With fascinating insights into the work of an under-appreciated artist, this book will be of interest to both fans and scholars of silent cinema.

The Silent Films of Harry Langdon (1923-1928) Review

REVIEW OF JAMES L. NEIBAUR'S "THE SILENT FILMS OF HARRY LANGDON

Silent film comedian Harry Langdon was in his heyday described as The Little Elf, a pasty-faced child-man who reacted to the adult world as if were still a confused infant. During his brief superstardom in the mid-1920s, Harry was incredibly popular with moviegoers despite the reigning triumvirate of rival comedians Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton. Yet by 1928 his flame had burned out and his career rapidly went into a downward spiral. By the time he died in 1944--still appearing in films, though light years away from his former prominence--the public at large had forgotten all about him. Nor did he capture the fancy of latter-day silent comedy aficionados in the manner of his contemporaries. One prominent film historian has described Langdon as the Carl Theodor Dreyer of clowns: Aloof, idiosyncratic, difficult to understand, a riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in an enigma.
James L. Neibaur, who in his previous books has brought new insight to the films of Keaton and Chaplin, goes a long way towards de-mystifying Harry Langdon in this new volume, covering Harry's entry into films in 1923 (after a long and succcessful vaudeville career) to his descent from popularity at the end of the silent era, with a brief wrapup of his work in talkies. Neibaur is at his very best when he tears apart the self-serving memoirs of director Frank Capra, who with Harry Edwards and Arthur Ripley comprised the writing team for Langdon's formative two-reelers at the Mack Sennett studio. According to Capra (who rather churlishly used his autobiography to settle a lot of old scores), when Harry came to Sennett he was a blank slate, with no distinctive comic personality or vision. Under the patient tutelage of Capra and his collaborators (so goes the legend), Harry was imbued with his unique overgrown-baby persona and guided through all his motions as if he was a marionette. By meticulously examining and dissecting all of Langdon's comedies for Sennett in the order of their production, Neibaur proves conclusively that Harry already possessed the elements that made up his screen persona long before his writing team went to work on him. It's undeniable that Capra, Edwards and (especially) Ripley were more than adept at explorian and exploiting the Langdon character, and placing him in plots and situations that would bring out the best in the comedian. The author successfully argues that Langdon's popularity was as much due to the progressive improvement of his Sennett films--from the rather crude and chaotic SMILE PLEASE and PICKING PEACHES to such polished gems as SATURDAY AFTERNON--as to the growth of Langdon's performing skills. Capra and company could take credit in developing Harry Langdon, but in no way shape or form did they "invent" him.
Harry really hit his stride when he and his team moved to First National Pictures, where he made two of silent era's finest comedy features, TRAMP TRAMP TRAMP and THE STRONG MAN (both 1926). Thereafter, things went awry, as Harry began imposing his own quirky notions of humor--laced with darkness, defeat, and despair--in his third feature, LONG PANTS (1927). Once Langdon became his own director, his comedy became even more gloomily bizarre with 1927's THREE'S A CROWD, his first real financial failure. An effort to return to the old Sennett style (albeit still laced with offbeat and off-putting touches) in his subsequent THE CHASER (1928) proved just as unsuccessful, and after one additional feature film Harry was through at First National--and so far as Hollywood was concerned, finished as a name of true importance.
Refusing to march to the lockstep of other film historians, Neibaur insists that both THREE'S A CROWD and THE CHASER are neglected masterworks, whose poor box-office performance can be chalked in great part to being ahead of their time, exploring deeper aspects of comedy that audiences of the late 1920s were unable or unwilling to grasp. While I cannot totally concur with the author's assessment of these two films, there is no denying that Neibaur makes a strong, persuasive and well-informed case.
THE SILENT FILMS OF HARRY LANGDON is a must-read for anyone who loves and cares about silent film comedy, and indispensible in furthering the appreciation of the unfairly neglected Little Elf. Highly recommended!

--Hal Erickson, author of ENCYLOPEDIA OF TV CARTOON SHOW, THE BASEBALL FILMOGRAPHY and MILITARY COMEDY FILMS.

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