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.

The W.C. Fields Films provides solid account of comic's career

Review by Doug Gibson

Genre author James L. Neibaur has done his usual, solid, well-researched, enjoyable recap of a film great with "The W.C. Fields Films," (here) recently published by McFarland, http://www.mcfarlandbooks.com/ (800-253-2187).

Harry Langdon and Buster Keaton are among performers whom Neibaur has assessed. As with the others, the Fields book covers his films, chapter by chapter. Serving as bookends are an opening chapter on Fields' early life and work in vaudeville, and the final chapter covers his last years.

Neibaur is a talented enough researcher and writer to have the film chapters also provide a chronology of Fields' life. The plots, filmmaking intrigues, reviews, box office fates, cast reminiscing, also includes snippets of Fields' personal life, including his frequent health problems as he aged.

If you are a casual fan of Fields, like myself prior to reading this volume, you'll learn that he was a major vaudeville star who dipped his toes into films a little and then several years later, made the full leap, astutely realizing that was where the future, and money was. Some of the early silent films were remade in the sound era. A couple, both remade, that are on my list to see are "Running Wild" and "Sally of the Sawdust." (Remade as "Man on the Flying Trapeze" and "Poppy.")

Neibaur also notes that Fields struggled at times with silent films. Regretfully, some are lost, including all three of an ill-fated attempt to team Fields with comedian Chester Conklin. Ultimately, it was sound that moved Fields to higher stardom. Neibaur correctly points out that Fields' understated delivery of his lines became very popular with audiences. In fact, aside lines like Fields (in "The Bank Dick") muttering that he loves daughters, particularly those between 16 and 18, is dialogue that I don't think censors would have allowed less subtle actors to utter.

Fields' glory days were with Paramount, his shorts, including 'The Dentist" and films such as "It's' a Gift" and "Man on the Flying Trapeze," are classic gems. He had the ability to play a put-upon father, a conniving boozer father, a con man father and guardian, and still provide sympathy with audiences. Also, pairing Fields with a loud, overbearing spouse prone to overly loud proclamations was usually comic gold. Neibaur also notes Fields's care in determining the plots and dialogues of his films; a demand that perceptive directors usually followed.

Fields' is also an actor whose health deterioration one can track through his two decades of stardom. In "The Dentist," he's still relatively trim. By his last film, the offbeat, eccentric, original "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break," he's a bloated, obese man with a large, alcoholic red nose. His Paramount and Universal tenures were cut short by bad health and poor health practices. Tragedy always affected his health adversely, from friends' deaths to a toddler drowning in a pond on his property.

In his book, Neibaur includes Fields successful comeback with Universal, with films such as "My Little Chickadee," a must-see with Mae West (The two egos survived peacefully long enough to make a great film), "The Bank Dick," and "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break," a brilliant satire that Universal failed to understand, and played as a second-feature.

Prior to reading this book, I'd only seen Fields in "International House," which I bought to see Bela Lugosi," "The Dentist," "My Little  Chickadee," and "It's a Gift," a film I've seen at least 20 times. The "W.C. Fields Films" has a lot of company with other great books about Fields. It serves however as a great source to learn more about the unique vintage comedy star, one of the few silent veterans to prosper in the sound era.

Since I read this book, I've seen several more films with Fields. Some of my favorites include "It's a Gift," "Man on the Flying Trapeze," "The Bank Dick" and "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break."

The prolific Mr. Neibaur, by the way, will soon have a book out on the Universal monster films.

The Harry Langdon Scrapbook captures the feel of vintage comedy

Review by Doug Gibson

Harry Langdon Jr., whose father, film comedian Harry Langdon will be dead 73 years this December, recalls as a very young child visiting the set of "Zenobia," (1939)  in which his dad starred with Oliver Hardy. As Langdon Jr. recounts, he was given a handful of double-headed nails by a stage worker. Perplexed at the oddly shaped nails, his father explained to Junior that they were used to make it easier to tear down sets.

"Nothing on a stage is permanent," Langdon senior told his son.

That phrase is the title of a book released last year from Walker-Anthony Books, "Nothing On a Stage is Permanent: The Harry Langdon Scrapbook." It's available from Amazon, and you can buy it from the publisher here.

The stage anecdote is from the book's introduction. Langdon Jr. is the narrator of a scrapbook that offers photos, artwork, press clippings, promotional clippings, film posters, letters, pay stubs, and more.

The narration is appropriately understated; the scrapbook is what the book's about, but it appropriately moves the reader through the life of Langdon and his career. The book serves as a well-done illustrated history of his life.

Some of the early photos, when Langdon was in vaudeville, in blackface, with "lightning sketches" he performed on the stage, and scrapbook items from his later hits "Johnny's New Car" and "After the Ball ..." will be priceless to fans. The recent publications of photos capturing Langdon's vaudeville days finally draw to a deserved close the Capra-inspired myth that he was a simpleton who had to be taught to be a film star.

I love the scrapbook additions of the Principle Pictures films that are mostly lost, as well as the contract. We learn in the book that one unreleased film, and lost, his very first, "The Skyscraper," was in a Pathe catalog in 1925 under a different title, "Mail and Female."

The book is full of tidbits that are of great interest to Langdon fans and all vintage comedy fans. There is a two-page promotional sheet for the lost film, "Heart Trouble," that is worth the cost of the Scrapbook.

Langdon Jr. notes that his mother, Mabel Langdon, carefully preserved these items. She survived her husband's death for well over 50 years. Langdon's highly talented art is in the scrapbook, including newspaper comic strips he did.

His personal life has a role in the book too. One pay stub for a film, "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum," shows that two thirds of Langdon's about $20,000 salary went for alimony. Another pay stub shows Langdon, in his own handwriting, noting a portion that goes to alimony.

The book is divided into sections, taking the reader through Langdon's life. His death is as sadly abrupt in the Scrapbook as it must have been in December of 1944. It's ultimately pointless to ponder how a Langdon in his late 60s, 70s, and later may have fared in TV. But it's hard not to.

Fortunately, his reputation was installed by critic James Agee, who in the late 1940s, tabbed him as one of the Big Four of silent comedy, along with Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.

In regards to Capra, the book doesn't shy away from that fact that Capra was correct that Langdon's move into more personal films, after "The Strong Man," hurt his career. It would be silly to refute the obvious. Also, Langdon took responsibility for those box office failures, and even criticized the later First National films.

I find beauty in "Three's A Crowd" and "The Chaser," but understand why they may have perplexed audiences 90 years ago. In his narration, Langdon Jr. doesn't flinch from pointing out the disaster Langdon's second marriage to Helen Walton was. The Scrapbook takes us through the lean years of the 1930s, when work was scarce, and trips around the world were required to make money. It also captures the happiness of Mabel and Harry's union, and Harry's joy to have a family with a son. Langdon Jr. notes that one reason he remembers his father so well is because the family revolved around Harry's life.

I hope this scrapbook sells well. It's a gem, easily worth its cost. I like that fans and others were involved in its creation. Film historian and author Ed Watz is credited for his contributions, as is former magazine publisher and writer Michael Copner. So is Cologne-based artist Birgit Kreps, who provides absolutely gorgeous hand coloring to many of the Scrapbook items. Finally, two of my dearest Facebook friends, super Langdon fans, Jessica Carlson and Nicole Arciola, are among those credited for their assistance.

It;s been a good year for Harry Langdon, heck a good decade-plus, with three biographies, some DVD releases, and this Scrapbook. What can we do to get Turner Classic Movies to air a Langdon First National Feature. How about accompanying it with an interview with his son featuring this scrapbook?

Sounds like a great idea to me.

'Hollywood's Pre-Code Horrors ...' a breezy recap of a golden era

Review by Doug Gibson

On the cover of BearManor Media's enjoyable new offering, "Hollywood's Pre-Code Horrors 1931-1934," is the infamous still from "Freaks," the one where the murderous trapeze artist Cleopatra, played by Olga Baclanova, is seen post-mutilation by the sadistic, vengeful carnival freaks. She's turned into a type of duck woman, and can only quack.

That "end scene" jarred me as a child watching the only version of "Freaks" then available in the 1970s, at least for TV consumption. It reminds that for decades the Hollywood pre-code horrors were seen on TV only in truncated versions, victims of the mid 1930s censors. "Freaks," by the way, has an epilogue beyond the duck woman. * However, like "Dr, Jekyll and Mr Hyde," and "Mystery of the Wax Museum," "Freaks" and other films, were even pushed out of circulation by the studios; a few were thought lost.

The films you could see: "Dracula," "Frankenstein," "King Kong," etc. were missing memorable scenes, such as the vampire's death groans, the Frankenstein monster tossing a child into a lake, or men being eaten by spiders on Kong Island. It's been about 20 years ago that fans finally began to see these films as they were presented in the pre-code era; first in video, later on DVD and now the Internet and streaming offer options.

With this comes more genre books on the pre-code era and its movies. BearManor's author, Raymond Valinoti Jr., provides an entertaining, informative look at these early '30s horror films. It's not as deep a dive into the pre-code horror era as McFarland's "The Turn to Gruesomeness in American Horror ...", but its breezy, one-film-after-another style makes for an easier read for genre fans. And the chapters are packed with information despite the slender several-pages chapters. I'd wager that the average genre fan will learn at least one fact about each film that he or she didn't know before.

Cast and crew, plot summary, the background of each film, why it was released, an explanation of the pre-code elements of each film and how they were received; audience and critics' reactions; recollections by principals and the financial fortunes of the films are popular topics in the chapters. All the essentials are covered, including "Doctor X," "Island of Lost Souls," all the Universals, including the delightful "The Old Dark House"; "White Zombie," and the grisly "Murders in the Zoo." In all, 19 films are profiled, including "The Mask of Fu Manchu" and even "Supernatural," an obscure pre-code horror directed by Victor Halperin with Bette Davis. It's the sole movie featured that I have yet to see.

Valinoti is a fine writer, and the book features a valuable introduction to the genre as well as an epilogue discussing post 1934 genre films. Frankly, I think "The Raven," "Mad Love" and "Bride of Frankenstein" should have chapters in this book. However, "Dracula's Daughter" and "The Walking Dead" are appropriately noted as films that were somewhat sanitized due to the code's renewed strength.

The author overdoes it a little in pointing out the sexism, racism, nativism, and other isms of some of the films. I don't disagree but these are 1931-1934 films, and need to be assessed in that context.

But there is little to complain about. "Hollywood's Pre-Code Horrors ..." is another fine BearManor Media offering to satisfy those whom delight in the minutiae of film genre.

* The TV version of "Freaks" I saw may have been the roadshow version that was peddled by exploitation filmmaker Dwain Esper long after the film was removed from general release by MGM.

Tod Browning's 1929 The Thirteenth Chair; early Bela Lugosi

By Doug Gibson

Tod Browning's early talkie, "The Thirteenth Chair," 1929, suffers from the common maladies of early sound cinema. It's static, talky, and seems a recreation of a stage play, which it really is, as virtually every moment is "drawing room mystery" with scene after scene of familiar rooms. Also, the camera work is stage-like, with stationary long and medium shots.

Nevertheless, it's a rewarding film experience for those who can endure the first half hour. The second half features a compelling murder mystery and fine performances by two cast members: Margaret Wycherly, as a medium and mother of the chief murder suspect, Helen O'Neill, played by an absolutely gorgeous Leila Hyams; and, a pre-Dracula Bela Lugosi, who lifts the quality of the film several notches with a strong performance as Inspector Delzante, tasked with finding the murderer of a despised "bounder," Spencer Lee. Lugosi takes command of the talky film and shows an energy and grasp of the English language that puts to shame rumors that early in stage and Hollywood he spoke his lines phonetically. (See him in a scene below).

The plot involves Sir Edmund Wales contracting a medium (Wycherly) to find the murderer. Hyams, a secretary, is engaged to be married to Richard Crosby (Conrad Nagel), son of the wealthy Crosbys. During the seance, Wales himself is murdered in the dark. As Lugosi's Inspector Delzante investigates, evidence seems to point to Helen (Hyams). That throws Helen's mother/medium Wycherly into a panic and she feverishly investigates to clear her daughter. Wycherle, whose husband, Bayard Veiller, was the author of the 1916 play the film is based on, shares compelling second-half scenes with Lugosi, even with the static filming, as she pleads for her daughter to the skeptical detective. (See a still of both below.)

The 72-minute film, released Oct. 19, 1929, has a strong twist ending that is both macabre and compelling.

Notes: Wycherle was a member of the original 1916 stage cast. The movie was filmed at least five times, in 1919, 1929, 1937and for TV in 1953 and 1954. The 1937 version is the one that is easily available via YouTube. Browning's version was also filmed silent, but that production is considered lost. The "Thirteenth Chair" is set in Calcutta with a typical English colonialist cast of characters. The play is free via Amazon Kindle. Lugosi and Wycherle both died within scant months of each other in 1956.