Topic: Carry Harry (1942) - Harry Langdon and Elsie Ames

[Paul Pain]

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034582/

CARRY HARRY is a bitter disappointment this short had so much potential and wasted it all.  How to describe it...

We have a better balance of Harry and Elsie in this one, and Harry gets most of the laughs while Elsie just shrieks and gets slammed around in mostly unfunny situations.  Harry has some interesting moments with the toaster and telephone, and Elsie is just misued altogether..

Stanley Blystone is great as the irritable boyfriend, but he too is underutilized.  All the rest of the cast is just wooden and uncomfortable.  I wonder if there were technical issues during this one, because no one seems to be really in it.  They're all just going through the motions.

It's weird, and I'm glad that's it for Elsie Ames...

5/10

[Umbrella Sam]

I would have hoped having Harry Edwards behind the camera might have helped, given his past history with Langdon, but sadly that does not seem to be the case (and yes, I am aware that the Stooges disliked working with the man). This was really bad. Harry does seem in character for parts of it, but most of it is the kind of stuff that could be done with just about any other comedian and the parts where he is in character aren’t even funny. I did like the mixup between the toaster and the telephone as well as the closing gag, but outside of that, this was incredibly boring. Harry just acts plain stupid here, and there’s also an uncomfortable scene of him kissing a woman while she’s passed out (maybe it was a reference to SNOW WHITE, but either way it’s still uncomfortable by today’s standards). Elsie Ames is there to be Elsie Ames and not much more and Stanley Blystone is a good choice for his role, but as Paul mentions, he’s underutilized. Well, let’s hope the next one isn’t as bad.

3 out of 10

[HomokHarcos]

This is similar to a few of the shorts Shemp did for Columbia. He gets into a variety of situations that makes his wife think he is cheating on her, and the husband wants to kill him for the same reason. It obviously does not fit Harry as well as it did Shemp. My favorite scene was with the telephone acting like a toaster jumping around, and I loved the "you're wanted on the toaster" line. At least this feels more like a Harry Langdon short than an Elsie Ames one.

[metaldams]

You know, this is one I’m going to have to disagree with the choir - I really enjoyed this one.

First off, the whole idea of talking to the yogi, getting a good fortune, and having bad luck is lifted from Harry’s very fascinating silent feature, THREE’S A CROWD.  The ending gag with the brick and barrels can also be found in that film.  Other than that, the films are nothing alike.  THREE’S A CROWD is the apex of slow Langdon, CARRY HARRY is decidedly not.

What struck me the most about this short is it is so fast paced yet the usually slow tempo Langdon kept several of his signature movements anyway.  His stilted speech and the way he talks to himself, his random nose wipes, the way he stomps things on the ground, the way he runs back and forth in confusion - it’s Langdon showing he can work in a fast environment and keep parts of himself after all.  Perhaps Harry Edwards is the reason.

Elsie Ames is used well here, not overtaking the short and getting some really good slapstick bits and hey, any time we get Marjorie Deanne is alright by me.  Plus again, familiar actors appearing in Columbia shorts who I don’t recall seeing with The Three Stooges, this time Barbara Pepper and Dave O’Brien.

Good short overall, fast paced and Langdon manages to still be himself.  I dig.