SATURDAY AFTERNOON might be my favorite Langdon short. It’s a toss up between this one and FIDDLESTICKS for me. Nice comment by Homok about how Langdon and Dent could have been in a team and yeah, this short does indeed feel like a prototypical Laurel and Hardy domestic comedy. I mean, heck, if you replaced Alice Ward with Mae Busch, you’d barely notice a difference.
Langdon is again a pretty passive character out of step with the rest of the world. “A crumb from the sponge cake of life.” What a great title card to describe Harry. Love the way in his opening shot he’s just sitting there, watching the final minutes of the clock tick away. That camera really takes it’s time holding that shot with Harry doing little more than blink - and it works. Harry out of step with the rest of the people trying to get on the bus, excellent. Whenever Harry is with a crowd of people going one direction, make sure he’s going the opposite.
I have two favorite scenes in this movie and they both involve Harry showing some gumption. The first is when after being reprimanded by his wife and she goes away, Harry finally gets aggressive. Of course, her not being there helps, so his aggressiveness is purely acting out fantasy. So funny seeing Harry finally do all these gestures - gabbing away, stomping his feet, moving his hands forcefully. So un Harry like, but easy to do when alone. Then his wife is to the side of him and Harry doesn’t see her, so he continues acting tough. Once she’s seen again he’s back to timid Harry. Love that part.
My other favorite part. Well, Harry at this point is established as a timid guy who can barely start anything on his own. Also pretty naive in the ways of love, especially for a married guy. The way he studies Vernon and his girl kissing is with childlike fascination and confusion is really telling. So we get seemingly passive and innocent Harry with Vernon lamenting they’ll never find girls like they just found. Harry, in a blink of an eye, pulls what appears to be two professional girls on each arm like it’s nothing. I always laugh at that part because he’s the last guy you’d expect to do that. Then he aggressively throws a brick at one of them, breaks a window and runs away. I love the way the camera holds while they show Harry run off in the distance. Hysterical.
I always likened the fight at the end to a tag team wrestling match. You have the superstar tag team, who are Harry and Vernon’s rivals. Vernon is the upper mid carder and Harry is the local janitor who got thrown in the ring. His presence is what guarantees the superstar team will win. More fun passive aggressive Harry here and the kicker is Harry sitting on two driving cars at the same time, completely oblivious to his surroundings. An extreme situation like that he doesn’t notice, yet he picks those girls off the street with ease.
A total classic. Included in the Slapstick Encyclopedia DVD set, so this is one of the first three Langdon shorts I was aware of. Now looks great on blu ray in The Mack Sennett Collection, Vol. 1.