A fun time was had at the Harry Langdon Film Festival

Forgive the selfie-like atmosphere of the photos on the blog. It's me preening for the camera, but I made them for social media. This past weekend, Saturday and Sunday, I was at The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum (see photo below) for the Harry Langdon Film Festival. It was great.

I'm kneeling in front of a re-creation of the backdrop of Harry's famous vaudeville routine, Johnny's New Car, which was done by the very talented Nicole Arciola, a leader in the Harry fan societies. Nicole, Tim Greer, Frances Anchenta Becker, and Langdon  biographer Gabriella Oldham, were all at the museum for the film festival. Also, I was able to meet persons I knew only from social media, Trav SD, Bill Cassara, and Paul F. Etcheverry. Many others were there enjoying a weekend of Langdon films, from several early silents including "Smile Please" "All Night Long," and "Saturday Afternoon," two silent features, "Tramp Tramp Tramp," and "The Strong Man," a couple of his Roach sound shorts, including "The Shrimp," several of his Educational Shorts, including "The Hitch Hiker,' and a sample of later Columbia shorts.

Trav SD spoke of Langdon's vaudeville days. Oldham did an excellent recap of his life. Cassara introduced a couple of films. The Vernon Dent biographer also provided interesting details on Langdon's frequent co-star, Dent. Genre experts who introduced films included James Neibaur, Steve Massa, Langdon biographer Michael Hayde and Ben Model.

I spoke at the festival on Langdon's final film, "Pistol Packin' Nitwits." My address was not captured in video or audio. In order to preserve it, I am presenting it below. It was my final working draft. I improvised some but all the details in it were addressed.

Finally, the wonderful staff at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum were wonderful, and hard working, particularly Rena Kiehn and Paul Mular, both of whom seem to have an unlimited source of positive energy!

--

Here are my remarks:

“Pistol Packin’ Nitwits” is my favorite Harry Langdon comedy short. I know it’s not his best comedy short, but it has such a delirious, chaotic completeness to it. And I love the co-stars, El Brendel, Christine McIntyre, Dick Curtis as the villain, Rawhide Pete, Brad King as the hero.

And it’s bittersweet to watch. This is the last work on film Harry Langdon performed. Returning from the studio, he complained of a headache, and eventually was diagnosed with the cerebral hemorrhage that killed him. At times I have tears in my eyes watching Harry dance in the film.

“Pistol Packin’ Nitwits” still has a healthy dose of the old vaudeville. Semi-scrupulous salesmen Harry and El Brendel pitch “high-quality” soap to clean tough stains like “axle grease.” Christine McIntryre sings. And there’s the soft-shoe dance routine with Langdon and Brendel.

“Pistol Packin’ Nitwits” blends several film genres to create something unique. In literature, there’s a term called slipstream. It’s defined as non-realistic fiction that crosses conventional genre boundaries to create a new piece of art.

This applies to film as well. Gary Rhodes and Robert Guffey, in their book “Bela Lugosi and the Monogram Nine,” argue that the hastily made, deadline-intensive, low-budget film world created chaotic, unique slipstream film art. The result often created surrealism.

One description of surrealism, as described by the scholar Andre Breton, cited in the book, is to “write quickly, … fast enough that you will not remember what you’re writing …”

Many of the Columbia comedy shorts are examples of slipstream plots with surrealism. “Pistol Packin’ Nitwits” as noted, is part vaudeville. It’s also part western film. It is also an old “’penny-dreadful” film of a young lovely, the saloon keeper, being terrorized by a boorish, threatening villain. It is also part musical, with McIntyre belting out the weepy song, “Father, Dear Father.” Finally, “Pistol Packin’ Nitwits” is part superhero film with the cowboy hero smiling as bullets fired by the villain bounce off his chest.

“Pistol Packin’ Nitwits” was released in 1945. The Captain America serial was released in 1944. No coincidence there, I’m sure.

Let’s talk more about surrealism. Andre Breton also described surrealism as the real meeting the fantastic to create an alternate reality. There’s a lot of alternate reality in “Pistol Packin’ Nitwits.” In one scene a cowboy is moved to tears by the song “Father, Dear Father.” But his tears fall in bizarre fashion, more as a stream than drops. Another alternate reality: villain Dick Curtis shoots constantly into our hero’s chest. Despite the impossibility of bullets bouncing of a chest, Curtis doesn’t seem surprised that his gun doesn’t work like it should.

And I consider surreal a sequence of quick-cut scenes where the hero is on his horse, racing back to the saloon to the tune of the William Tell Overture. Each interlude is brief to the point of surreal absurdity, lasting about a second.

Finally, in closing, let me stress that director Harry Edwards, the writers, and Harry Langdon and cast didn’t huddle together and say, ‘hey, let’s blend genres to create a work of art that’s both unique and surreal!’

Just like a cult film can’t be intentionally planned and crafted as such, neither was “Pistol Packin’ Nitwits.” They made a film. They had to do it quickly. They were on very tight budgets. They had to be super creative and super innovative. The creators used all their talents, genre knowledge and experience. To get the film finished on time, they threw everything into the pot, and created something unique and wonderful.