Edward Bernds' memoir is a history of early Hollywood sound films

By Doug Gibson

I've long wanted to read Edward Bernds's memoir, "Mr. Bernds Goes to Hollywood: My Early Life and Career in Sound Recording at Columbia with Frank Capra and Others." But it's pricey. Just to buy it in Kindle is $40-plus dollars; out of print dead-tree copies go around $50 and more.

But I found it, in the library at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, where this blog calls home. Who wouldn't want to read about Edward Bernds' career as main sound man for such great Capra films as "Lady For A Day," "It Happened One Night," "You Can't Take It With You" and more? And Bernds was also on the set doing sound for Howard Hawks, Leo McCarey, Gregory LaCava, and more. In the studio system of the 1930s, it wasn't all A production assignments. Bernds was assigned to dozens of low-budget western oaters, many starring Charles Starrett. He also did sound for screen tests and the low-budget near low-on-the-Columbia-totem-pole comedy shorts. In fact, Bernds was on the set when a trio of performers, Moe, Curly and Larry, starred in a musical novelty short called "Women Haters." Of course, they became the Three Stooges and Bernds was around doing sound for many of the comedy, Stooges, Andy Clyde and others.

Bernds was born in Chicago in 1905. He loved the new medium radio and by the time he was 20 he worked at a Chicago station. When his girlfriend, Bathsheba, moved to Los Angeles, Bernds eventually followed her there and the pair were married. They returned to Chicago briefly but a job offer came from southern California as a sound technician. Bernds' tales of the early days of sound films is fascinating. He describes the gradual sophistication of studios' sound systems. Early synchronized sound involved filming in a confined space, that limited the freedom of the camera. That may be why so many early sound films look stagy.

Bernds worked briefly at United Artists but moved to Columbia. It was considered a lesser studio but it was a smart move for Bernds. He describes how he was noticed by Capra, an exceptional director who was able to place actors in plots and situations and elicit performances that made audiences care about their fate. Capra noted Bernds' talent, and he became his preferred sound technician.

It was a fortunate partnership. Bernds was an observer of film, a frustrated wannabe screenwriter and director who compensated that desire by writing short stories for the 1930s literary magazine "Rob Wagner's Script." Bernds recalls taking his published stories to Columbia's crusty boss, Harry Cohn, who always asked Bernds to send a screenplay. As Bernds notes, at that point in his life he lacked the confidence to write a screenplay.

As mentioned, Bernds kept notes and along with his memories they provide a detailed look at early sound Hollywood that is a treasure for film buffs. We get peeks into the characters and actions of stars such as Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, Claudette Colbert, Jimmy Stewart, Loretta Young, Leslie Howard Jean Arthur, The Stooges, of course, and many more.

Trust me when I say the life of a working-class, integral member of a film crew, the sound technician, is an interesting topic, particularly one toling 80-plus years ago. Bernds captures the times, the down of the Great Depression, the hope that Franklin Delano Roosevelt offered. We walk streets in 1930s southern California with Bernds and we vicariously relive Bernds' memories of his favorite mode of transportation, the cross-country train.

Bernds learned both diplomacy and when to assert himself on a set. As he recalls, Capra was open to suggestions, but a director such as LaCava would fire a subordinate for unsolicited information.

The details of filmmaking, beyond just sound technology, are fascinating in Bernds' memoir. He takes us across the Atlantic to shoot a film in England, to New York and New Jersey for shoots, to ranches in southern California, to the rickety Columbia stages used for the comedy shorts, and much more. We get glimpses of the dangers, and sometimes tragedies, that resulted in filming in an era before modern special effects.

Through the 1930s, Bernds and his wife raised a family and saw his paycheck grow with Columbia. But he harbored a major ambition, to be a director. And that is the theme of "Mr. Bernds Goes to Hollywood," it's one film professional's journey to finally becoming a director. The book opens with Bernds' relating Cohn's bewilderment that his efficient sound man wanted to chuck that for directing. It ends with Bernds' move to directing with the shorts department under the guidance of producer Hugh McCollum. The memoir barely covers the directing years, but any genre fan is well aware of the dozens of Columbia comedy shorts Bernds directed, and the features work he got, usually "Blondie" films.

Bernds never became an A director. He didn't have the opportunity to do Capra-esque films. He left Columbia when McCollum was fired and a previous western feature with The Stooges he made, "Gold Raiders," got terrible reviews and that hurt his career (I have seen the film and enjoy it). But he was hired at Allied Artists for a while and was busy directing for more than a decade, including the later Bowery Boys films, a couple of late Stooges features and some genuine cult science fiction films, including "Queen of Outer Space" and "World Without End."

He died in 2000, a year after his memoir was published. A couple of interesting points: Although he has great respect for Capra, he notes several recollected events that are distinctly different from what Capra writes in his autobiography. This is important because Capra, who had feuded with Harry Langdon in the 1920s, was harsh to Langdon in his memoirs, claiming things about him that have been debunked since.

Also, there is a bittersweet recollection of Bernds, and his writing pal Edward Ullman, visiting his old work office at Columbia in the late 1960s on business. The pair of film veterans were condescended to and lectured on comedy by a youngster less than half their age. At that point, Bernds decided he was content with his two film industry pensions.

I urge fans of the Columbia comedy shorts to read this book. They will gain a better appreciation of one of the best shorts directors. His later years are highlighted with an epilogue interview of Bernds by Leonard Maltin and Joseph McBride. Bernds offers interesting tidbits, some delightfully gossipy. McCollum, Bernds reveals, was smitten with the beautiful comedy shorts supporting player Christin McIntire, although he says it may have been platonic.

Those wishing a more detailed look at Bernds' work with Columbia comedy shorts must read the book by Ed Watz and Ted Okuda, "The Columbia Comedy Shorts, reviewed here.

Book review: Harry Langdon: His Life and Films

Review by by Doug Gibson

I'm overdosing on Harry Langdon the past couple of weeks. Besides reading William Schelly's excellent biography of the silent comedy star, "Harry Langdon: His Life and Films," (from McFarland) I've watched about all the films I can find. There's a lot on YouTube (I'm listening to one of his talkies as I pen this review) and Kino offers a DVD with three of his best silent films, The Strong Man, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp and Long Pants. (I've snuck in a YouTube of Tramp ... above).

As Schelly notes, Langdon -- and his first wife Rose -- honed skills in the first-decade plus of the 20th century as a comedy burlesque team, and later a top vaudeville act. One of Langdon's specialty acts was a Night on the Boulevard, where he was a timid, comic driver. Langdon was a talented artist, and used his art in his acts. He even had a comic strip for a time. He was big as Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd ... But today, while their works appear often on Turner Classic Movies and casual film fans know their names, Langdon still often draws a blank stare. It's past time that changed. We need to lift Harry Langdon back into the film history spotlight.

 Langdon and  Rose made it to the top in vaudeville, appearing in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. This is important to note because as Schelly notes, both Frank Capra and Mack Sennett, who both worked with Langdon during his rise as a comedy star, later wrote autobiographies that contained inaccurate accounts of Langdon, claiming he had garnered very little acclaim prior to working in silent comedies. They also claimed that Langdon's career had completely collapsed with the advent of sound, and that he was a failure afterward. Again, completely false, and those accounts -- which many believed -- speak more to Capra's and Sennett's inability to forgive and forget after their highly publicized splits with Langdon in the 1920s.

Langdon honed his silent comedy skills working with the greats, Sol Lesser and then Mack Sennett, usually in shorts and sometimes in two reelers. While at Sennett, he managed to create a unique comic persona -- the little elf. A mild character whose comedy is created from his reaction to the world around him, the elf was not a physical character, or a natural brute. He usually got the girl in the end, one of his co-stars was a very young Joan Crawford, but the little elf, with his powder-white gentle face, could be considered asexual. He was a fantastic caricature for the silent star, who used bewildered expressions and a dogged, quiet, slow determination to achieve his goals. He could do physical slapstick when the script occasionally called for it.

As Schelly notes, one of the best Sennett/Langdon efforts is "Saturday Afternoon," which can be seen via YouTube here. As Schelly notes, Sennett was not a producer that stars stuck with forever and eventually Langdon moved to First National Pictures, where he established relationships with directors Frank Capra and Harry Edwards. Capra, of course, later achieved fame with a series of dramas starring Jimmy Stewart. He also developed a relationship with a writer named Arthur Ripley.

While at First National, for a couple of years, Langdon achieved super-stardom, earning several thousand dollars a week. His first two films, "The Strong Man," and "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp," were very successful. "The Strong Man" carries much of the themes of Capra's later films, with honest reformist folk overcoming greed that has created anarchy and riotous lifestyles. The first was directed by Capra, the second by Edwards. Langdon's third film, "Long Pants," was directed by Capra but it was during the production of that film that the two split, with  Langdon wanting to direct his future films.

During that period Schelly notes that Langdon's marriage to Rose had collapsed, which no doubt contributed to the pressure of constantly staying a star. As Schelly notes, First National wanted two films a year and constant film success would be tough for anyone to maintain. Langdon's next two films, "Threes a Crowd" and "The Chaser," produced mediocre box office returns. Another film "Heart Trouble," was little publicized by First National and in fact is now presumed lost. During the second half of Langdon's rise and fall with First National, Sennett, who held rights to earlier unreleased Langdon shorts, released them to coincide with the release of the First National films. That act likely siphoned some of the box office proceeds from Langdon's new releases.

Now, if one believes Capra and Sennett, when his First National contract ended along with the start of the talkies, Harry Langdon's career essentially ended, and he spent 16 bleak years before he died at age 60 in December 1944. But, as mentioned, that's not true. The last 16 years of his life Langdon was constantly working in show business, films and the occasional stage act. He married twice more -- the third time being the successful one that produced a son. Until the end of his life, Harry Langdon still saw his name at the top of the credits in films he starred in. It matters little that the starring roles were for poverty row studios such as PRC and Monogram or for Columbia Studios comedy shorts department. For any silent comedy film star, that was frankly the best to be hoped for. Langdon's talkie career -- until his death -- can arguably be tagged as more successful that Keaton, Lloyd, Ben Turpin, Andy Clyde, Charlie Chase, Billy Bevan and others.

In the talkie era, Langdon made comedy shorts for Hal Roach studios, Educational Films, RKO, and Columbia's dominating department. Edwards directed many of them. He was paired often with Vernon Dent, a frequent comedy antagonist. Late in his life he was paired with the comic El Brendel. He made 47 shorts and starred in several films, directed a few, and also had small parts in bigger-budget A productions. He had money problems, usually as a result of having to meet financial obligations for his earlier failed marriages. However, the final five years of his life, Langdon appeared in 24 films, many with Columbia, which demanded physical comedy. The last five years of his life, Langdon began to age and it was no longer practical to attempt the "Little Elf" persona. It's a tribute to his skill that he was easily able to adapt his talents to the "harried businessman/husband" or "inept employee" or "unlikely, oafish hero" roles.

Langdon was good friends with Stan Laurel, and frequently wrote for Laurel & Hardy. In 1939, while Laurel was having a tiff with Hal Roach, Langdon received his last big-time. It was a great opportunity. He co-starred with Oliver Hardy in the big-budget "Xenobia." Langdon is great in the film, as the owner of an elephant that falls in love with Ollie. Harry's character sues Hardy, and it's resolved in a funny court scene. It's a funny film and is well reviewed, but the film tanked at the box office. It seems movie-goers only wanted Hardy with Laurel. Langdon, who idolized Laurel, had been told that he would get a second starring role with Hardy, but the poor returns for "Xenobia" killed that. It was a disappointment, but as Schelly notes, Langdon never had any intention of trying to break the team of Laurel and Hardy and a second film would have been his last.

After "Xenobia," and the move of Laurel and Hardy to a bigger studio, Langdon seemed to have started a frenzy of acting and writing in Columbia shorts and poverty row films. As Schelly notes, he also made many "soundies," musical numbers that played at arcades in which viewers paid a small fee to watch the act. In 1943 he toured the country in the stage act, "Out of the Frying Pan." And he earned money as a gag writer for RKO in 1944. It seems his financial situation improved for his young family, but it must have been a physical strain for the aging star, in his mid-50s. Langdon's father had died of a cerebral hemorrhage and in early December, after working on a physical, slapstick comedy for Columbia, "Pistol Packin Nitwits," Harry came home and complained of a very bad headache.

His doctor put him to bed but his conditioned worsened. He had suffered the same malady that had killed his father. He died on Dec. 12, leaving his wife, Mabel, and their son, Harry Jr., who had just turned 10.

As Schelly notes, in his later career Langdon's fate was that his great talents, creating very funny comic scenes, were too often surrounded by dreary long, plotting hacked out by mediocre talents in an assembly-like atmosphere. Langdon was a perfectionist, and that caused rancor in the 1930s as the former big star, who had taken his time setting up comic scenes, was told to get it done and quickly by budget-conscious low-budget directors. But he seemed to finally adapt to it, and even became a fixture at Columbia. It was no doubt gratifying for him to be on the top of the movie poster for the shorts and the PRC and Monogram films. In many ways, Langdon's career echoes Bela Lugosi's. Both enjoyed a short time on top, floundered for a while trying to maintain a starring role in A films, and eventually settled down to starring in lesser productions with occasional A roles.

As Schelly notes, it's unfair to target Langdon as a failure in the 1930s as many other comedy stars, including Keaton, were having lesser success trying to adapt to a new form of talking cinema comedy, with heavy emphasis on dialogue (think the Marx Brothers or Hepburn and Tracy) and more emphasis on physical slapstick (think the Three Stooges). Langdon's "The Little Elf" was heavy on quiet characterization, a sometimes melancholy personality and eager yet timid expressive eyes. Although Langdon's voiced matched what would be an appropriate tone for "the little elf," his type of comedy had passed.

A bigger question is why does Langdon remain obscure today. Just watch the film above and you'll see a master on par with Chaplin's "The Kid" or Lloyd's "The Freshman." Schelly opines that besides the public criticism from Capra and Sennett, Langdon's relatively brief time as a super-star in the 1920s makes his era seem like a blip, rather than the consistent success during that decade of Chaplin, Lloyd and Keaton. It's true Langdon made too many films to quickly. Another reason may be he died before the 1950s and 1960s, where television and future acting opportunities would have brought him newer, and younger fans. That was a positive development for Keaton, for example.

In any event, Schelly's book is a treasure; well worth the steep price. Harry Langdon needs to have his comeback. I'll be pestering TCM to have a Langdon night on Silent Sundays. Hope the rest of you will, as well.