Wow, I’m far behind! Well, I may as well start with these Holloway shorts since I’ve already seen them.
Yeah, everyone remembers Holloway for Winnie the Pooh, but to me, his signature role is the Cheshire Cat in ALICE IN WONDERLAND. To me, he seemed at his best in eccentric, crazy roles like the Cheshire Cat. I could see him pulling off some Charley Chase plots and I suppose a Langdon role would seem to fit that personality too. However, the problem is that this is still physical comedy, and to me Holloway just doesn’t fit the bill; I think I mentioned this in a previous post, but Emil Sitka mentioned in a diary entry that Holloway seemed rather frail when he worked with him. Holloway had heart problems later in life and Sitka’s comments make me wonder if these date back even further. There’s just something about him that seems off trying to do physical comedy; I feel worried that he’s going to collapse from exhaustion any time I see him doing anything physical.
It’s because of this I don’t feel Holloway pulls this role off as well as Langdon. To be fair, Langdon wasn’t as physical a comic as Keaton or Lloyd, but as a silent comic, he obviously did understand that that was required at times and nothing felt wrong about it in I DON’T REMEMBER or COLD TURKEY. Here, Holloway does seem like he’s trying too hard to keep up while in the Langdon version it felt completely natural. I did see this before the Langdon version and even then I didn’t feel the role really fit him well, which is why I was so impressed when I saw the Langdon version and how well it worked together. Certainly not a bad rendition and at least everyone seems to be trying to do their best. But it seems quite rare for a Columbia remake to actually succeed.
