Harry Landon:Forgotten Clown C

 

 

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Forget anything you have read about the 'classic clowns of silent comedy' and in particular anything you have read about Harry Langdon and simply let this DVD take you back to another era. Wouldn't you like to climb aboard a time machine? Especially if there are a few laughs along the way? Along the way make a new friend, Harry langdon a unique clown/comedian/pantominist/all around vaudevillian who had been stomping the boards for nearly twenty years when he discovered the medium of film and the medium of film discovered Harry Langdon. Make a new friend. It is hard to resist Harry even if he is a bit odd, ignore those descriptions suggesting he had an infantile streak, think more Pee Wee Herman than Pee Wee Brown, Harry was one twisted clown, LONG PANTS gives a better take on Langdon's skewered take on The World. Can't stand silent films? So What? Put this DVD on the big screen as back-drop at your hip-hop or rave party and blast your favorite music. Harry won't mind. You'll find his antics just as amusing when set against modern music. Harry was a clown in tune to all generations. Try not to laugh. Try not remembering what made you laugh. Modern music may be blasting but you won't get Harry's mug out of your mind. It will creep into your mind at odd times and you'll recall some silly bit he did with a mop or a set of bar-bells or a jar of foul smelling cheese. Plus a bonus, Joan Crawford in one of her earliest roles and who was her man? Harry Langdon!

I'm not an especially big fan of silent movies, but I do have a soft spot (on my head) for silent comedies. Having recently purchased a Laurel and Hardy DVD, Amazon made the recommendation of this disc, and I decided to give it a try.

The Strong Man (1926) Directed by Frank Capra has Harry as a Paul, clueless Belgian solider who gets captured and carried away by an enemy soldier. After the war is over, we see the two of them arrive in America, and the soldier that captured Harry is none other than The Great Zandow, a strong man by profession. Seems The Great Zandow has made Harry his personal assistant. Was this common practice back in the day? Making captured prisoners indentured servants? No matter...Harry is more concerned with finding a romantic pen pal who sent him uplifting letters during the war. This leads a particularly funny sequence involving a case of mistaken identity, a gangster's moll, and a wad of illicit cash. Later we see Zandow and Co. (Paul) travel to Cloverdale, a small, wholesome town that has suffered an invasion of hooligans. Seems they have taken over the main city building and turning it into a beer and dance hall, much to the dismay of the more pious members of the community. Well, The Great Zandow has been booked to perform in the hall, and on their arrival, Paul finds his female pen pal, but their meeting is cut short as the strongman gets drunk and Paul is forced to perform in his place, with disastrous results. This one, in my opinion, is the funniest of the three presented here, and also the best looking in clarity and definition.

The next feature, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1926) has Harry as the son of a shoemaker and we find that they are having difficultly paying their rent and will be thrown out in the street in three months unless they come up with the money. Harry decides to go out and find a way to come up with the money, and stumbles into a major shoe manufacturers' promotional cross country walking race that will net the winner $25,000. Also, Harry becomes smitten with the president of the major shoe company's daughter, played by Joan Crawford. The race starts, and this leads to a number of comedic sequences, one involving a fence and a cliff, another involving stolen fruit and a prison chain gang, and so on. As the race comes to an end, watch for the cyclone scene, a truly inspired bit. The picture quality on this feature is not as good as the first, as there are some more noticeable flaws, but overall it's quite good, considering the age of the material.

The third and last feature on this disc, Long Pants (1927), directed by Frank Capra, is kind of an odd, sometimes creepy feature with spots of comedy. This one seems to put people off, and it's understandable. This one has Harry living with his parents, and shows him in short pants (knee length). He's taken an interest in women romantically, but, being that he's still in short pants, the women consider him still a boy. For Harry's birthday, his father wants to give him a pair of long pants, but his mother objects as she thinks it will be some sort of corrupting influence on their son. In the end, she relents, and Harry gets his long pants. I have to say, it seemed really creepy seeing a 40ish man in short pants. Anyway, it seems Harry is betrothed to a local girl, but becomes smitten with another woman, one who is in trouble with the law for smuggling 'snow', among other things. She ends up getting jailed, much to Harry's dismay. On the day of Harry's wedding, he concocts a scheme to get out of the wedding, and here's where it really gets creepy. His scheme involves taking his fiancé out into the woods and shooting her dead. He attempts this, but comic mishaps ensue. The bear trap gag was truly a great bit. In the end, he's not successful, and basically ditches his family to goes to rescue this other woman. She manages to escape, hides in a crate, and Harry tries to get her out of town. I thought this whole sequence was quite funny, and made up somewhat for the earlier creepiness. Everything works out in the end. I read another review on this feature, and I think it hit the nail on the head in that the reviewer stated that some of the situations played out in this feature are out of Langdon's character, as we want to like him, but a fantasy about killing his fiance' doesn't really make for a likeable character. This feature has the worst picture quality of the three, especially at the beginning, when the picture seems very bleached and washed out. The quality does improve marginally throughout the movie, but never matches the clarity of the other two. Again, given the age of the material, all three are actually in pretty good shape.

There are no extra features, but there are chapter stops for each film, and the total run time is around three hours (one hour for each film), so I feel I received a really good value, and was enlightened to a lesser-known comedic talent of a bygone period. Laurel and Hardy will always be my favorite, but there is always room for more.

Cookieman108

If you are a silent film enthusiast or a slapstick comedy fan, this DVD of Harry Langdon's best three feature films is a must purchase. Langdon toiled away in vaudeville---where he was a perennial headliner--- since the early 1900s before being given his first break in silents in the early 1920s. Within a couple of years the baby-faced comic's popularity rivaled that of Keaton, Chaplin, and Lloyd. As is evidenced in "The Strong Man," Langdon was a master pantomime, perhaps the most gifted of the big four silent comics. From beginning to end, "The Strong Man" captures the innocence and pathos that made Langdon so popular. His sad sack personna and his seemingly being in a perpetual state of utter confusion combined to create a pathetic, yet hilarious, comic effect. While his baby-faced, sad sack character was partly the brainchild of Frank Capra, it was Langdon himself who breathed life into the little clown. His gestures are endearing and his facial expressions are one of a kind, and he perfected these animations during many years of live performances. Unlike Lloyd, whose comedy----funny as it may be--- depended on the ridiclousness of the situation, Langdon's characters in "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp," "Long Pants," and "The Strong Man" are laugh-inducing all on their own. While marginally similar to the stone-faced character of Buster Keaton, Langdon's comedy is more subtle than Keaton's. Probably the silent comedy genius most like Langdon in style was Chaplin. While the baby-faced clown's range was not as vast as that of the little tramp, his timing and ability to emote was the equal---if not superior to---his more renown rival. We know that Chaplin's character emulated that of the great Max Linder; after watching these films you may legitimately wonder if Chaplin also borrowed from Langdon's vaudeville act, despite the latter's baby-face character not having been fully developed at the time. It is likely that Chaplin caught Langdon's live act on more than one occasion, as Harry's acclaim in vaudeville predated the little tramp's film debut by more than a decade. Sadly, however, Harry's unique comedy style waned with the arrival of talkies. To a greater degree than any of his aforementioned rivals, Langdon's art depended on silent emoting. Sound on film was his death knell. But thanks to this welcomed DVD collection, fans of silent comedy can once again view Harry Langdon at his artistic pinnacle (1924-26). While Harry continued in talkies making some above-average short reel films until his death in 1944, he was never again to approach the popularity or critical acclaim of his silent work. This DVD is a long overdue tribute to the least appreciated of the four great silent clowns. After viewing this collection, I'm sure you will be singing "I'm just wild about Harry!"

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4.0 out of 5 stars The Strong Man makes the DVD worth it
If you see just one silent film this year--watch The Strong Man. It's a hilarious film and Langdon's timing is PERFECT. One of the funniest films ever made. Read more

Published on Oct 27 2002

4.0 out of 5 stars two hits and a (very big) miss.
As most people say, Langdon is an acquired taste. A little goes a long way and he was totally one dimensional but when handled right - aka Frank Capra - he was very funny. Read more

Published on Mar 4 2002 by A. Grossman

5.0 out of 5 stars The Fourth Man
Harry Langdon is generally considered to be the fourth great silent comedian. Considering that the other three are Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, this assessment is high praise... Read more

Published on May 19 2001 by Mr Peter G George

4.0 out of 5 stars Great prints, ideal format, and terrific value.
I love the Harry Langdon persona, a kind of Pee Wee Herman of his time. Of course, the masterpiece of these 3 films is The Strong Man, but Tramp, Tramp, Tramp has several... Read more

Published on Feb 23 2001 by Thomas M. Shepard

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