Harry Langdon as The Shrimp is an early-talkie comedy gem

Review and observations by Doug Gibson

During the years 1929 and 1930, Harry Langdon starred in eight talkie comedy shorts for Hal Roach Studios. A screen shot from the film, "The Shrimp," is above. Thanks to the "Frank Capra Fibs" legacy, Langdon's Roach shorts have been breezily derided and scorned for decades. The truth is, five of the six films I have seen (two have lost sound discs) I find better-than average examples of early-early sound comedy shorts.

And "The Shrimp," I believe Harry's penultimate film with Hal Roach, is a gem. I consider it a classic within its admittedly small genre, sound comedy shorts prior to the early 1930s. Co-stars include an already-established comedy star, Max Davidson, a budding star, Thelma Todd, and a reliable heavy of the genre, Jim Mason. I've read that Hal Roach Studios was a fun place for actors to work, and the cast seems as if it's having some energetic fun.

The plot involves Harry living in a boarding house. He's weak, timid and easily bullied. He does admire the daughter of the house (Nancy Drexel), and she seems to like him, urging him to stand up to his tormentors. Harry, in a halting sing-song, toddler-like voice, one that was used in his vaudeville appearances and some films during his entire career, says he will stand up to them.

However, dinner is a disaster as Harry is viciously and sadistically bullied by Jim (Mason), and his girlfriend (Todd). Most of the other boarders unfeelingly laugh at his plight. The cruelty does allow the talented Harry Langdon to create a lot of pathos. One particularly funny scene is Harry trying to get at least one bite as food is passed around the large table.

We soon find out that Harry works, or volunteers, as a product tester for a goofy, well-known scientist (Davidson). In a highly publicized event, courtesy of the experiment, Harry assumes the personality of a rambunctious dog. Harry quickly runs away from the event and returns to his boarding house with a whole new attitude, and aggression.

As mentioned, these are early talkies and somewhat crafted in the style of a silent film. I think the same movie, without changes, could also have been as effective as a silent with subtitles. I wonder if "The Shrimp" played older movie theaters as a silent?

I will not give away too many details of the hysterically funny climax of the film where Harry settles scores with, among others, the lazy father of the boarding house, and in a big fight, with Jim the bully. It is fast-paced and funny, and the credit goes to Langdon, who despite no changes in his body or even tone of voice, become head of the household, and "the boss," through the sheer brute will and tenacity of, say, a bulldog. In the last scene, Harry's focus is taken away by the presence of a cat, that, of course, needs to be chased. For a second, Harry eyes a telephone pole with interest, a nice subtle joke, the type of mild, off-color humor Langdon used in the late '20s, particularly in his penultimate silent feature, "The Chaser."

Readers can find "The Shrimp" on the Internet if one searches thoroughly. I'm not going to give a link for two reasons. One, I don't want it lifted, and two, Kit Parker Films (also known as Sprocket Vault Classic Films) is releasing via DVD, in April, Harry Langdon at Hal Roach: 1929-1930. It will have all eight films I have read, and that must mean the two without sound discs will be included. There will also be a Spanish version of one of the Roach shorts, which will be fascinating, and other extras. To my knowledge, this may be the first factory release of any of Langdon's talkie shorts. I am extremely excited about this release. I have already pre-ordered it.

Book reviews Andy Clyde Columbia comedy shorts

Review by Doug Gibson

Vintage comedy star Andy Clyde enjoyed a long career. He gained prominence in the silent era and was still making audiences laugh in the 1960s as a character on TV series (including The Real McCoys) and a memorable guest spot as an impoverished maker-of-berries-for women's-hats in The Andy Griffith Show.

It's interesting that his longest running gig, 22 years, is either forgotten by most or woefully under-represented for those interested. That's his 1934 to 1956 tenure making comedy shorts with Columbia studios. Clyde made almost 80 shorts, nearly all of which still exist, as prints or negatives stored at The Library of Congress. His iconic persona and talents, old man with spectacles, a walrus mustache, along with an alarmed comedy double-take that few peers can match, were honed to perfection during his Columbia years.

As James L. Neibaur, author of The Andy Clyde Columbia Comedies, McFarland (2018) (800-253-2187), notes, for a while in the 1930s the Andy Clyde comedy shorts were more popular than The Three Stooges shorts for Columbia. Even after The Stooges grabbed the top comedy shorts spot as money-makers for the studio, Clyde's shorts never relinquished its strong second place.

The Scotland-born Clyde (1892-1967) who migrated to the U.S. in 1912, showed enough talent to grab the attention of Mack Sennett, who liked his versatility and slapstick skills. Late in his silents career, Clyde used makeup, including facial stubble, to make him appear and old man, although he was still in his 30s. As talkies took over, he used this persona for Educational Pictures shorts, initially with Sennett.

Clyde was a natural fit for Jules White, who oversaw Columbia's still-new comedy shorts department. With directors such as White, Charley Chase, and Del Lord, Clyde made his best shorts in the years before World War II, when, as Neibaur notes, budgets were higher for the Columbia shorts. Some of the best include Love Comes to Mooneyville, 1936, and Stuck in the Sticks, 1937, in which Clyde and actor Robert McKenzie have slapstick competitions to win the hand of Esther Howard, who had strong chemistry with Clyde.

Clyde's old-man looked allowed him to be able to play a wide range of characters, from a backwoods man to a professional man, such as a doctor in the very funny Old Sawbones, 1935, in which he competes with a veterinarian to become county physician. Comedy shorts regulars of the period that co-starred with Clyde include Vivien Oakland, Shemp Howard, Vernon Dent, Barbara Pepper, Bud Jamison, Betty Blythe, Minerva Urecal, Charley Rogers, Christine McIntyre ... and more.

Jules White was an effective director for Clyde notes Neibaur. White possessed the ability to create so much slapstick, even violent, in such a short time that the audience ended up enjoying the film even if the humor was scarce. Clyde's acting skills lent polish to White's craft due to Clyde's skills at slapstick. Clyde also worked well with directors Charley Chase and Edward Bernds, both of whom favored humor a little more subtle than White.

One of my favorite lower-budget shorts from the 1940s is Andy Plays Hookey, (1946), a remake of W.C. Fields' movie "Man on the Flying Trapeze," where Andy is a henpecked man who after a day of trying to see the fights eventually asserts himself and achieves respect in his home and work. Watch it below.



As Neibaur mentions, Andy Plays Hookey, which was directed by Bernds, was also a remake of a Sennett-directed short, Too Many Highballs, starring Lloyd Hamilton in a role Fields was supposed to have starred in. So, there are three films on the subject, the first being the Hamilton-starred one.Andy Played Hookey, Neibaur writes, manages to compact much of "... Flying Trapeze" in a two-reel film, while ... Highballs was much more streamlined, he adds.

Here's two parts of another, 1937 Clyde Columbia short, Lodge Night, via YouTube.





Clyde was well-liked at Columbia and known as a team player who would work with anyone, including Harry Edwards, a one-time feature director whose skills had eroded. Neibaur notes that a few of Clyde's Edwards shorts are damaged by poor directing, such as lingering far too long on a scene.

Clyde was married to the former Elsie Tarron, and had a son named John. He loved being a father and it was a crushing blow when John died in 1944 at age nine of meningitis. Clyde learned what parents who lose children know -- that life goes on. After a short break, he resumed the Columbia shorts as well as outside work, including roles in western films, such as The Hopalong Cassidy series.

By the 1950s, Columbia's comedies were a shell of what they had once been. Budgets were at a minimum, and most of the films were remakes of earlier films using stock footage of the previous films. Neibaur notes that Clyde usually only worked for a day on these shorts, a few scenes to set up any new actors in the remake. In fact, one of Clyde's final films is 90 percent old material.

Even in the 1930s, a Columbia short was finished in five days. By the mid '50s, with one-day shoots for a couple of recycled shorts a year, Clyde made the decision to leave Columbia after 22 years. The popularity of television offered him lucrative roles that time with the shorts was likely cutting into.

He remained a successful working actor until his death, with a large TV resume. He died of a heart attack in his sleep.

When the Columbia shorts were syndicated in the 1950s, a healthy number of those chosen were Clyde's, and they played often. Of course, with the exception of the Three Stooges, none of Columbia shorts are aired commercially today. Thanks to streaming sites such as YouTube, you can find several to watch. Greg Hilbrich, with his The Columbia Shorts Department website (an invaluable tool), has posted Clyde and other Columbia stars on his site's YouTube pages.

Still's, there's not enough of the shorts available for viewing to whet this fan's appetite after reading Neibaur's comprehensive assessments of all the shorts. Let's hope that Andy Clyde's Columbia output one day receives a quality DVD release, maybe 24 shorts, with cleaned up commentary, perhaps from Neibaur, Hilbrich, or Ted Okuda and Ed Watz, who wrote the indispensable The Columbia Comedy Shorts.

Laurel and Hardy very funny in Our Wife

Review by Doug Gibson

I recently watched "Our Wife," a very funny Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy short from 1931. Produced by Hal Roach Studios, the plot involves rotund Ollie wanting to marry his equally rotund sweetheart, Dulcy, (played by Babe London). Unfortunately, Dulcy's dad, played by comedy short legend James Finlayson, absolutely forbids his dumpling to marry Hardy. So, with the help of mild-mannered Stan, the comedy pair ineptly plan to spring Dulcy from her home and elope.

This is my second-favorite Laurel and Hardy short. Only "The Music Box" is better. The comic timing is superb and the cast is an iconic dream. Besides Ollie, Stan and Finlayson, the minister who married Ollie and Dulcy is played by cross-eyed silent and early sound comic Ben Turpin. Turpin, born in 1869, was a genuine pioneer of the comedy silent era. One of his early, early films, 1909's "Ben Gets a Duck and is Ducked," filmed in Chicago, had him going into a public duck pond. He was arrested by police officers not amused at the film company's permit-less filming efforts!

The best scene in "Our Wife" involves Ollie, Dulcy and Stan trying to fit into an impossibly tiny getaway car, procured by the hapless Stan. The film is easy to find as part of collections offered via amazon, etc. It also pops up on Turner Classic Movies once in a while. But, thanks to YouTube, you can watch the film above. More info is here.

'The Dentist' is a very funny pre-code W.C. Fields short

By Doug Gibson

I had the opportunity to watch, again, this pretty fun 1932 Sennett comedy short, "The Dentist," starring W. C. Fields as a gruff, eccentric dentist and his travails with his daughter, who loves the ice man, his golf game, as well as some golf buddies and life in the dentist's office interacting with his pretty nurse and a few eccentric patients.

As mentioned, Fields is great. Only Fields can wave away concern about patient's pain with lines such as, "Oh, to hell with her," or "Have you ever had this tooth pulled before?" This is a film made just before the dreaded Hayes Code restricted Hollywood fare to a G rated-type fare. "The Dentist" is PG fare, with Field's mild growling, suggestive sarcasm, and in one particular one very sexually suggestive scene where dentist Fields burrows himself deep between a lady patient's very wide, very bare legs in order to force a tooth extraction. (A portion of the scene is shown above). The lady patient is played by willowly, Elise Cavanna, and she sort of looks like a sexier version of Carol Burnett. Although Fields' character has no romantic intentions, the scene is definitely played as a sexual satire. Cavanna's groans of pain contain more than a hint of passion, and after the tooth is extracted, she lies back in the chair, limbs splayed, with a countenance that hints of "afterglow."

I have recently learned that the scene between Fields and Cavanna was indeed a sexual spoof. It was a based on a popular stag film of the 1920s, called, "The Slow Fire Dentist." In the film, a dentist and a lady patient take things a good deal further than Fields and Cavanna. It's an interesting bit of film history and, as mentioned, it's a good bet "The Dentist" would never have been allowed to be screened had it been made a couple of years later.

Rumor has it that there's an even spicier version of "The Dentist" out there but I suspect the Turner Classic Movies print, which is shown at least once a year, is complete. The 20-minute film was directed by Leslie Pearce. If one wants to see Fields at his best in a feature film, I suggest 1934's "It's a Gift."

Review of Vernon Dent: Stooge Heavy, a second banana gets his due

By Doug Gibson

It's a pleasant surprise to see that BearManor Media has provided cinema genre fans a biography of that most famous supporting character of slapstick comedy shorts, Vernon Denton (here). Mentored by Keystone cop Hank Mann, his career started about 100 years ago and never really ceased, moving smoothly through the heydays of Mack Sennett, Educational shorts and the Columbia comedy shorts.

Dent (1895-1963) was fated to have a face often recognized but a name that would come slow to the lips of the average theater-goer. He's best associated with the Three Stooges. (In fact, just a few days I was watching The O'Reilly Factor have a segment that was highlighted with old film clips. Although it lasted a mere five seconds one of the blackouts was Dent -- in some old Stooges short -- getting a pie in the face. I hope I'm not the only viewer who snapped his fingers and said, "THAT'S VERNON DENT!"

But enough of my chatter, I need to get to reviewing "Vernon Dent: Stooge Heavy: Second Banana to the Three Stooges and other Film Comedy Greats," by Bill Cassara, BearManorMedia, 2013. To be very frank, if you're looking for a personal biography of Dent's life, and his impact on the times, you'll be disappointed. This is not really a biography. It can't claim that status when major events such as the death of Dent's mother, Fannie, or his first marriage, are captured in a passage or two.

Instead, what Cassara presents is the equivalent of a well-researched, in-depth, entertaining long magazine piece on the times of Dent's life, with major focus on the entertainer's career. Cassara provides scores of newspaper, school and publicity accounts to traverse Dent's interesting life and times. One personal note that does include extensive reference is the 1909 murder of Dent's father, William, a saloon keeper. William was murdered by the boyfriend of a woman he was having an adulterous affair with. Not unlike today, such an unsavory scandal attracted the media; an added incentive was that William Dent was a nephew of former U.S. President U.S. Grant.

The scandal caused Fannie to move her family from San Jose, California to Oakland, and Vernon grew up in northern California. He seems to have been stagestruck since about the age of nine, and received his share of local publicity as a teen. Fannie Dent died in 1915; by that year the young Dent was married and a professional musician performing in San Francisco and he later Southern California in a nightclub in 1916.

As mentioned, Hank Mann, who had a young Charley Chase directing films, started using Vernon as a supporting player in a series of one- and two-reelers. By 1920 The Pacific Film Company attempted to make a star of Vernon by having him basically do a Fatty Arbuckle takeoff in a series of shorts. As Cassara notes, that ended with Arbuckle's scandal involving the death of actress Virginia Rappe. In these early comedies, Vernon also starred with a beautiful, petite actress with the odd name of Duane Thompson, although in the comedies she went by Violet Joy. Some of these films still exist.

At this juncture of his career, Dent had roles in some features, including "Hail the Woman," but he caught the eye of Mack Sennett and that solidified him as a comedy shorts player. He had a natural rapport with star Harry Langdon, and the pair would work together in films for two decades. Late in the 1920s, during the evolution from silent to sound films, there were two attempts to pair Vernon with co-stars Monty Collins and later Lou Archer. Both attempts could not generate the fan interest to keep them competitive with popular teams such as Laurel and Hardy.

That Dent failed to click as a comedy shorts star is likely because he didn't generate the pathos or likability that Oliver Hardy, for example, could muster with his screen presence. Or maybe he had weak scripts too often? Dent was a splendid actor and talented comedian. That made him very valuable to the comedy shorts producers, who could essentially plug him into any part, star, supporting or bit player. He was always on the payroll of Sennett, Educational and Columbia and often made the equivalent of a $100,000 a year salary today.

Perhaps the last chance Dent had to develop a team was with Langdon in the Educational shorts of the early to mid 1930s. They have some great rapport in shorts, particularly "The Hitchhiker," "The Big Flash," and "Hooks and Jabs," but the death of director Arvid Gillstrom, and later Educational studios, moved both stars to the more slapsticky, Stooge-comedy Columbia, with its shorts head Jules White. As Cassara writes of the Stooges, "The humor of The Three Stooges was physical, lowbrow and 'vulgar.' It was anything for a laugh. The Stooges were a curious combination of surrealism and exaggerated sound effects."

And it worked. Audiences loved the Stooges and their act kept at least two dozen more comedians busy working at Columbia in its many different shorts series. Vernon worked for everyone, but in popular culture, he's attached to the Stooges. In fact, the final 40 percent of the book is a compendium of Vernon's 400-plus film appearances, including his roles with the Stooges.

As the reader gets closer to the appendix, more of the personal life of Vernon is noted. This is mostly thanks to interviews with Vernon's third wife, Eunice, conducted by film historian Ed Watz. (Vernon's second wife had died in the 1930s). He met Eunice at a party thrown by his good friend Langdon, and his wife, Mabel. According to the book, Eunice says he proposed that very night. Their marriage lasted until Dent's death.

As Dent settled into life as a Columbia comedy shorts player, he contracted diabetes in the mid 1940s. It was no surprise as the very heavy Dent loved eating sweets. The condition worsened and by the mid 1950s Vernon was blind. According to Cassara's book, he became blind after refusing to submit to more painful insulin shots.

The strength of Cassara's book is that casual, and even genre fans, will learn many new things about Dent. One was his participation in a "keep-up-the-moral" feature from the World War II era, "San Diego, I Love You," a Universal offering. I have embedded a scene from the film that includes Vernon at the end of this review. Other interesting tidbits is Dent's appearances on TV, including "I Love Lucy."

The details of Watz' interviews with Eunice provide fantastic ancedotes into the lives of the husband and wife, as well as a glimpse into the Hollywood of that era. She notes that Vernon was a favorite of Frank Capra, who used him in bit parts in some of his films. She also expounds more on the close friendship between the Langdons and Dents.

Dent died of a heart attack in 1963, having survived long enough to witness the rejuvenation of the Three Stooges' careers after the Columbia shorts ended. It would be very interesting to read similar accounts of other Columbia shorts supporting players, such as Christine McIntyre or Dick Curtis.

(Also embedded below is a clip from a 1924 Sennet short with Vernon and Andy Clyde, "Black Oxfords").

One more note: This Dent biography can be purchased for under $10 via Kindle.
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