I know Langdon primarily from stills and the conventional explanation in most film histories that he enjoyed a brief popularity while Chaplin was between movies, which I've always felt was inadequate explanation.
Yeah, that doesn't ring true for me, among other reasons because his style of comedy is not very much like Chaplin's. There's a sort of superficial resemblance in the little character trying to get along in a big world, but Chaplin's Tramp is much more resourceful in a crisis or an altercation, however bewildered and battered he might have been before; Langdon's protagonists aren't totally passive, but they're dangerously close to it. They sidestep trouble much more often than they confront it, or they simply fail to notice it's there at all; they live in charmed circles of their own obliviousness, like the fool of the world in a fairy tale. I'm not sure there's any guarantee that, if you were a fan of Chaplin, your affections would automatically transfer to Langdon.
There does seem to have been something about the combination of Harry Langdon and Frank Capra—they worked together on Langdon's three most famous features, the two I've mentioned and the next year's Long Pants (1927), and he never seems to have been as successful again. On the other hand, it was the end of the silent era and his character really doesn't seem to have translated well to sound, so I don't know how much was Capra's direction and how much was timing and how much was just the sea-change in pop culture between the 1920's and '30's that took him out. He is totally worth your time, however. He isn't like any of the other major silent comedians and I'm glad we have the films we do.
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Yeah, that doesn't ring true for me, among other reasons because his style of comedy is not very much like Chaplin's. There's a sort of superficial resemblance in the little character trying to get along in a big world, but Chaplin's Tramp is much more resourceful in a crisis or an altercation, however bewildered and battered he might have been before; Langdon's protagonists aren't totally passive, but they're dangerously close to it. They sidestep trouble much more often than they confront it, or they simply fail to notice it's there at all; they live in charmed circles of their own obliviousness, like the fool of the world in a fairy tale. I'm not sure there's any guarantee that, if you were a fan of Chaplin, your affections would automatically transfer to Langdon.
There does seem to have been something about the combination of Harry Langdon and Frank Capra—they worked together on Langdon's three most famous features, the two I've mentioned and the next year's Long Pants (1927), and he never seems to have been as successful again. On the other hand, it was the end of the silent era and his character really doesn't seem to have translated well to sound, so I don't know how much was Capra's direction and how much was timing and how much was just the sea-change in pop culture between the 1920's and '30's that took him out. He is totally worth your time, however. He isn't like any of the other major silent comedians and I'm glad we have the films we do.