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Long Pants (1927) - Harry Langdon

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Offline Paul Pain

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Offline metaldams

I’ll get to this one in the next few days.  Can’t wait to read everybody’s opinions on this one, as I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time.
- Doug Sarnecky


Offline metaldams

      OK, it’s time to discuss LONG PANTS.  There are some people who think this is Langdon’s last great film.  There are some people who think Langdon jumped the shark here.  I’m in the weird position of viewing LONG PANTS as a big misfire but actually enjoy the features that came after.  Why is this a misfire?  One very simple reason.  Harry Langdon attempts to murder his fiancé.  Let me repeat that slowly - Har Ree Lang Don Uh Tempts To Mur Der His Fee On Say.  I hope I made that clear enough.  This scene, which happens about halfway through the film, makes me lose any sympathy for the character and also makes me view his character as a hypocrite who lacks any self reflection and projects his own failures onto others.  His judgmental attitude towards Bebe towards the end runs a little cold due to what was attempted earlier in the film.  If you took away the murder scene, this film has potential.

      So Langdon age wise, kind of ambiguous.  It seems like he’s in the early stages of adolescence, you know, graduating to long pants and discovering girls.  At the same time, his parents seem quick to marry him off, something someone older than an adolescent would do.  Add to the fact this role is being played by a 43 year old man and this gets stranger.  In THE STRONG MAN, there is the line about Harry needing a truant officer, but beyond that, Langdon was usually portrayed as an eccentric adult.  Here, he is being played as someone a bit younger.

      However, there is a good concept lurking in LONG PANTS that is hinted at but ruined by the murder scene.  It’s the idea that it takes Harry so long to figure out Bebe is a cocaine smuggling criminal.  This would have worked better with an innocent Harry, the kind of Harry who is a few steps away from the rest of the world like he us in other films we’ve watched.  The part where Bebe is holding up the man and Harry thinks the man is handing over all this stuff out of kindness is a good concept.  There needed to be more gags like that.  The fact that it takes a big catfight with Bebe and the other gangster girl for Harry to see what Bebe is is fascinating.  I love the shot where Bebe is sulking around after the fight and there is Harry, front of screen from behind, sitting there completely still for what seems like a minute.  He’s in total shock, it took him this long to figure her out!  Look, when I was a teen I liked a girl so much that her being hungover on the bathroom floor at Denny’s didn’t make me change my opinion on her.  I look back at that now differently.  So yes, the concept of beauty making young men blind is ripe with comic potential.  But most of us don’t go as far as attempted murder.

      In the end when Harry comes back home to his family and Priscilla, it should be a happy ending.  Instead, all I’m thinking is Priscilla needs to run.  Yes, the murder scene ruins this film for me.  The mannequin gag is funny, Harry running on the street with Bebe in the crate is funny, but funny only in isolation.  That one scene looms large for me and that’s all I have to say.  I’m curious as to your opinions.
- Doug Sarnecky


Offline Paul Pain

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My God does this suck... Every freaking frame is a giant sequence of wasted potential.

The highlight was Harry dealing with the dummy cop.  The rest just sucks.  Oh, Lord, does this suck.  This is Three Stooges Besser era level sucking.

Harry reads ao many books... but can't see that something is wrong with this woman?  He doesn't care that she's a serial criminal and decides to try to murder his fiancé.  Worse, he actually does try and doesn't feel an ounce of guilt about it.  He helps this woman break out of jail, and then he just quietly goes home without any signs of having learned from this escapade. 

Harry is supposed to be a man-child, not a perverted adolescent who can't look at a girl without getting an erection.

This movie can... BURN IN HELLTM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Offline metaldams

I’m not sure Harry actually knew she was a criminal or lacking character until he witnessed the fight and gun action.  Notice his complete shock when he finally figures it out.  The headline in the paper indicated she was abandoned by her friends and in his mind, he probably thought her jail sentence was unjust.

I actually like the concept of Harry being oblivious to this girl, it really works for his character.  They just ruined it with the whole murder angle - totally unnecessary.
- Doug Sarnecky


Offline Umbrella Sam

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Probably the film I was most curious about going into this, as I knew of its controversial reputation. Here’s the thing; I’ve mentioned before that Langdon’s character is almost in an entirely different reality from everyone else and as such, he can often make dark gags work. But even Langdon couldn’t pull off that attempted murder scene; it’s way too discomforting and, while the gag is supposed to be that he’s too incapable to pull it off, it still does put a very unlikable spin on the character. And, Harry being Harry, it’s really drawn out.

But I’m more on metaldams’s side here; that’s really the only part of this film I don’t like. In fact, you could actually remove that one sequence and still follow along to the film. Yeah, think about it; if they just cut from Harry at his wedding arguing with his father to the scene of them discussing Harry’s abrupt departure, the plot would still make sense, and it would also protect the innocent quality of his character that is prevalent throughout the film. The idea of him falling in love with Bebe does feel in line with his oblivious character and there is something oddly satisfying about him realizing in the end who she really is and deciding he wants out. You have to remember that the initial idea is that this is a character that’s been kept out of long pants for years so he won’t get in trouble, and once he does get into them, he has to learn for himself the difference between right and wrong. That’s really not a bad concept. And, to top it all off, it does have a really great comedy sequence in the second half. Yeah, the cop-dummy part is fantastic. Langdon moves and panics in the way only Langdon can do, and it’s also funny seeing him run around with the wrong crate. The rest of the comedy revolves around Harry’s obliviousness to seeing Bebe commit these horrible acts and not realizing what’s going on. I think the scene with her robbing the man on the street would have played really well with sound; I can just imagine Langdon thanking the man for his generosity as he hands him his wallet. And, again, it actually does kind of make sense for Langdon’s character; he didn’t see Bebe pull the gun on the man, he legitimately thinks the man is just giving him stuff.

So, yeah, a flawed film, but it’s really only one part that ruins it and, like I mentioned, you could very easily remove that sequence and make it a much better film. Is it the worst Langdon feature? Well, we’ll see, but I will say I have seen a bit of one of the upcoming films and it has a scene in it that infuriates me so much...and unlike this film, you can’t remove it and have the plot make sense. So I’m going to say it’s probably not the worst Langdon feature, but we’ll see. As it stands, LONG PANTS is a film that had a bad idea mixed in with lots of good ideas; this is the film where the Langdon-Capra fallout happened and you can tell just by how disjointed that sequence is in comparison to the rest of the movie.
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Offline HomokHarcos

My opinion of the movie after my first viewing, and my re-evaluation after reading your reviews is different. After my first watch I loved this movie, and it was my favorite Langdon feature. Bebe was a highlight of the movie, and I can easily see why Langdon would fall for her. When I first watched this movie I was the same age as Alma Bennett when this movie came out, and I found her attractive. Probably my favorite vamp in a Langdon movie. I love the scenes Harry has with her, especially when trying to get her past the cops, and the fight scene where the women both take their tops off to fight, and Langdon decides to take his top off, too. But Paul's comment makes me also reconsider this whole relationship. As he noted, Langdon is usually confused by women and doesn't understand attraction, so the fact that he is actively attracted to her is unique.

I've also heard people complain about Langdon playing an adolescent, but in my view he wasn't supposed to actually be that young. I interpretated it as his parents knowing how childish he was and being reluctant to let him go out on his own, and trying to arrange a marriage for him, so he doesn't fall for a bad woman. I do find Priscilla to be much less entertaining than Bebe.

Now on to the most infamous scene of Harry trying to kill his wife. Frank Capra, when asked about this scene, said it was Harry's idea and he agreed that it ruined the film. Now, we know that Capra can be unreliable, and he may have been trying to deflect it to Harry, but I do think it being Langdon's idea is not far fetched. I agree with Umbrella Sam that it could have been removes from the movie without affecting the plot, and that's right. On my first viewing I thought it was really funny, it reminded me of Wile E. Coyote trying to attack the Road Runner and always failing, but yeah it destroys the whole mood of the movie.


Offline metaldams

I've also heard people complain about Langdon playing an adolescent, but in my view he wasn't supposed to actually be that young. I interpretated it as his parents knowing how childish he was and being reluctant to let him go out on his own, and trying to arrange a marriage for him, so he doesn't fall for a bad woman. I do find Priscilla to be much less entertaining than Bebe.

That’s a really interesting take I never thought of.  Makes sense.

This thread got messed up somehow.  It was moved to archived topics a few days ago and I had to move it back to the Random Comedy Reviews section.  Somehow FreddieSanborn’s post and my response are missing.  Have no clue what happened.
- Doug Sarnecky


Offline Umbrella Sam

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On my first viewing I thought it was really funny, it reminded me of Wile E. Coyote trying to attack the Road Runner and always failing, but yeah it destroys the whole mood of the movie.

Yeah, I was actually thinking along the same lines regarding the Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner connection, although in that case, it’s at least understandable that a carnivorous animal would be trying to hunt its own food, and I can see why audiences would feel bad for the Coyote in that context. I think if this was its own short and it revolved more around constantly punishing Langdon for what he’s trying to do, it probably could have worked as a comedy, but it really does not work well in the context of a movie where they’re clearly trying to make you root for him.
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