Three's a Crowd

With his quizzical expression and childlike demeanor, Harry Langdon was one of the slapstick cinema's brightest stars, a low-key alternative to his more fast-paced contemporaries. His hard-luck persona always had a melancholy air as he ambled through life, blissfully ignorant of the pitfalls of modernity. In 1927, enjoying the power that came with owning his own production company, Langdon steered his trademark character even further from the conventionalized slapstick of his Mack Sennett background.

His directorial debut, THREE'S A CROWD (1927), didn't just dabble in pathos, it plunged its hapless hero into a netherworld of loneliness worthy of Samuel Beckett (a self-avowed Langdon fan). Harry stars as a slum-dweller who invites a freezing woman (Gladys McConnell), pregnant with another man's child, into his home. Nursing mother and child back to health, he achieves his dream of having a family... or so he hopes.

Landon's second film as director, THE CHASER (1928) is a dark, slightly kinky comedy in which a carousing Harry is ordered by a judge to swap domestic duties (and clothing) with his wife. Deprived of his manliness, Harry contemplates suicide while coping with flirtatious salesmen and the scorn of a former comrade.

This DVD of THREE'S A CROWD and THE CHASER is authored from new HD masters derived from the 35mm negatives held by the Raymond Rohauer estate. Due to decomposition of the original film elements, portions of the THE CHASER are mastered from a 16mm print. Product Description

Harry Langdon jumps the shark in these films

These were awful. I loved Langdon in "The Strong Man," and "Tramp, tramp, tramp," but these two films were difficult to sit through. Few comical moments and Langdon seems to have slowed down so much that I almost fell asleep. The audio commentary on, "Three's a crowd," is very informative (who ever did the commentary seems to know everything there is to know about Langdon) but so lavish in its praise of this very dull, unmemorable film that I wondered if I was watching the same film that he was discussing.
There's no way to get around the fact that Harry Langdon's films ceased to be "A" list films in the late twenties. His career never recovered. There are flashes of genius (yes, genius) here and there in the many shorts and guest appearances he made over the next fifteen years but he was living off of his fame. It's too bad that he didn't quit while he was ahead. Instead, he jumped the shark. July 24, 2008

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

I share with the other reviewers their appreciation of Kino for releasing these films. As poorly as they have been reviewed over the years, it is nice to see a company place an item in the marketplace for the sake of completing the picture.

I have been a Langdon fan for about 30 years. I started out collecting the Blackhawk 8 mm prints, graduated to video where I could find it, bought both of the biographies (though Rheuban's book is barely that, I concede), and have been in heaven over the past several months with the glut of fine, fine Langdon material coming on the market.

Even with this history, I had only seen "Three's A Crowd" and "The Chaser" in the most miserable of VHS dupes. Not only was Langdon's face almost completely without feature, but the background was muddled to the point of being unrecognizable. I had thought both films relatively poor based on what I had seen.

I have changed my mind regarding "Three's A Crowd". I have always liked Langdon because he was different than the other comedians of the era, and so I have never made a direct comparison of his work to the others. In this film, he is quite excellent. David Kalat's commentary, while sometimes bordering on mile-a-minute revisionism, does get it right in that this film is Langdon's apotheosis of stillness and minimalism. I believe that if he had been allowed his initial cut, the film quite likely would have been even MORE extraordinary than it is today. The faults I can find with it are not the ones normally cited about poorly done pathos and matching (no one seems to notice this at the end of City Lights, by the way), but with continuity problems that might have been solved with the addition of the dream sequences at the beginning and some other scenes that we only know of from photographs. Pictorially, it is excellent, and the lack of gags was something I feel Langdon must have done intentionally, so I don't fault him for it. I have the impression that this was a film he had always wanted to make, and what we have is the compromised version of it. Not a masterpiece, but much better than I initially gave it credit for.

As far as "The Chaser".......well.......I love Langdon. I will put up with a good deal just to watch him go through his paces. There is some funny stuff here, but as a whole, the film just confuses me. The Sennett inspired setpiece with the beachballs and swooning women is a complete failure to me because I do not understand it as anything other than an opportunity for some gagging that Harry does not even DO particularly well. Not a total washout, because Langdon is a very interesting comedian to watch in any circumstance, and particularly in a film that was made in the silent era. I just wish he had taken a little more care in it's construction, because it looks very much thrown together. Then again, maybe he felt the frenetic pace and overt gagging was necessary, as has been cited in prior reviews.

I give it four stars. In my mind, a Langdon silent *starts* at three stars just because it exists, and then goes up from that point dependent on the quality. "Three's A Crowd" alone is sufficient to merit this grade, in my opinion. July 1, 2008

The Fall And Rise Of Harry Langdon...

...(with apologies to Reginald Perrin). There has been a lot of interest in Harry Langdon of late. Thanks to last year's HARRY LANGDON: LOST AND FOUND it was possible to finally see the early comedy shorts that brought Langdon to prominence. Now with this Kino International release (one of three new SLAPSTICK SYMPOSIUM offerings) you can see the two films that brought about his downfall.

Much has been written about THREE'S A CROWD over the years almost all of it negative. Seeing it today, there is much to admire but it's easy to see why audiences of 1927 hated it. Existential comedy in the silent era was doomed to failure and while you can admire Langdon for attempting it, you just have to wonder why. The audio commentary by film historian David Kalat makes a good case for the film even if he occasionally is a little overenthusiastic.

The second feature THE CHASER is a return to safer territory as it is basically a reworking of Harry's numerous henpecked husband shorts of the early 1920s. Part of the humor derives from seeing Harry as a ladykiller or "chaser" but it then veers into strange territory by having the partners switch roles as ordered by a judge and Harry's inability to handle the loss of his masculinity. This time around there are lots of gags but it wasn't enough to win his audience back. His final feature film HEART TROUBLE was barely released and is now considered lost.

If you're just starting to familiarize yourself with the work of Harry Langdon then this is definitely not the place to start. Try the LOST AND FOUND set first and then move on to THE STRONG MAN and LONG PANTS before you tackle these. The prints from the Raymond Rohauer collection are excellent for the most part although THREE'S A CROWD has one segment of serious nitrate decomposition. The organ scores by Lee Irwin provide an excellent accompaniment. Thanks to Kino for reviving these late Langdon efforts so that we now have a fairly complete picture of the comedian from start to finish in the silent era. June 4, 2008

Harry's Films!!

I can't wait to see these films. I just love harry films . They are wonderful to see & always bring a happyness within my life by just seeing his way as an actor & funny man. We just are crazy about harry.

April 24, 2008

A treat for Langdon completists!

Having seen "Three's a Crowd" (1927) and "The Chaser" (1928) in horrendous prints, I have to applaud Kino for releasing these. Though I'm sure the market is not crying for the two films that derailed silent clown Langdon's career, lovers of silent comedies are definitely going to want to jump on this release.
"Three's a Crowd" was Langdon's earnest attempt to emulate Chaplin's filmmaking style. It features Langdon as a typical down-on-his-luck blue collar worker (moving pianos, if I remember correctly) who takes in a young woman who is pregnant and is angry at her husband. While she stays with him, Langdon is doing everything possible to make her fall in love with him and spends his time daydreaming of a life with this girl. While the film is not a complete disaster, it is just not overly funny. Many people feel this film marked the end of Langdon's career, which is not true.
"The Chaser" is his next film, and is an enjoyable domestic comedy in which Langdon angers his wife who files divorce papers. The judge, apparently quite a progressive guy, decides what Langdon needs is to live for awhile in his wife's shoes. Langdon gets to do a lot of good comedy in this one and this film is a complete shift in tone from "Three's a Crowd." Much of the film is tried-and-true remakes of short films he did early in his career. "The Chaser" is a good entry into Langdon's canon.

March 24, 2008

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