Fascinating short and thanks for posting this, Paul. This really is the earliest example I’ve seen of Langdon, for the most part, being Langdon. A ton of slow moments though I have to say, the print itself does let Langdon down a bit. There were two videos of this I could find on YouTube and they looked to be the same print. With Harry, the facial expressions and reactions are so important and a huge part of the humor, more so than most other comedians. A lot of times Harry’s face was completely whitewashed, like with various times when he got hit on the head with an object or when he was eating the spoiled soup for Kalla Pasha or when he was calling his cross dressing wife down to bed. The body language was there, but I really wanted to see the face.
There were a few Sennet like moments, like Harry getting thrown around like a bouncing ball and that cartoon like jump he does through the window towards the end, all pretty funny stuff but for the most part this felt pretty Langdon like. The scene earlier where the guy is getting doused with water through the window and Harry jumping around like he has no clue what to do is pretty Langdon like for sure.
There is also the homosexual imagery, if not actual practice, in this short. Even though it was really Alice Day (sister of Marceline Day from Buster Keaton’s THE CAMERAMAN), dressed like a man, there is still the image of what appears to be a mustached man kissing Harry in bed. Pretty risqué and boundary pushing for the time and more Mack Sennett than Harry. Check out the Sennett short HEARTS AND FLOWERS where there is an actual cross dressing female kissing another female. Of course, all Alice had do to was whisper to Harry it was her, and she had opportunity to do so. It would’ve avoided confusion though admittedly made the film less fun.
A really interesting short overall and I’d say important to Langdon’s on screen development. There are a couple of shorts after this one missing as far as I know, hopefully someday they show up.
