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HARRY LANGDON

If I said the name Harry Langdon would you know it? Now I'm not talking about Harry Langdon Jr here, the celebrated photographer but rather his father the 1920s silent comedian. Harry Langdon Snr came to the movies quite late really, he was about 40 before he made his first movie. He ended up at Sennett Studios after working with Sol Lesser at another studio. Mack said that Harry was the greatest comedian that he had ever seen, having worked with a few above-average comedians such as Charlie Chaplin, Mabel Normand and Roscoe Arbuckle to name a few, Mack should have known a comedian when he saw one, so this statement has some weight behind it. Hal Roach had shown interest too in Langdon. 

Initially, Harry didn't really get to do much at Sennett, but stand around and do a couple of silly things with the legendary Sennett Bathing Beauties filling in the space about him. But soon Harry got to be Harry and slowly you see his character coming out more and more, Mack must have been letting loose the noose. Harry didn't stay long at Sennett before moving on to bigger and better things, Mack never paid his talent the money they deserved, so he lost them all. Three movies in Harry's career are his most famous, The Strong Man, Tramp Tramp Tramp and Long Pants all made for First National with Frank Capra as his director. Harry had first met Frank at Sennett and together they made the move to First National. Frank went on to say some pretty dreadful things about Harry's ego, whether it is true or not we will never really know. What we do know is that after Frank's departure, Harry's next movies were not successful. I don't believe this was all due to Capra's departure. Harry showed in Long Pants that he loved dark comedy and he continued down that road, perhaps it was all just bad timing, or perhaps he did go too far. Stan Laurel was good friends with Harry until Langdon's death in 1944, Langdon wrote several times for L&H and you cannot fail to see the influence of Langdon's "Elf" on Laurel's character.

It's just too bad that Harry didn't live to get the recognition that first would have come in 1949 with the publishing of the article by James Agee in Life Magazine, the same article that helped place Buster Keaton back on top. Nor did he get to put forward his version of the Capra story. Dont' get me wrong he didn't die a sad, lonely man, or even dirt poor. I just lament that he missed out on rediscovering of his work, he missed the second applause. It's nice to know that there are fans out there, loads of us, enough of us that this year a wonderful collection of Harry's movies from his Sennett years has been released, The Harry Langdon Collection Lost and Found, I got mine from Amazon. And later in the year, even more of Harry's work will be released. It's his face, his smile the way he tips his hat. I just love Harry
 Langdon and I hope that you do too
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