Topic: The Chaser (1928) - Harry Langdon

[Paul Pain]

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018761/

THE CHASER is possibly the ultimate in "WTF did I just watch?" moments as far as feature films that I reviewed, and we have discussed some bizarre stuff on here.  Funny and bizarre is interspersed with stretches of humdrum.  Surrealism, Langdon's strong point, is the sole driving factor of the majority of the film.

Let this film be a lesson to us on how to completely disconnect your audience from a film.  The first is to spend 20 minutes of the film on a sequence that does nothing to advance the plot.  The second is to suddenly cut back from that aside to the end of the film.  While the scenes with Bud Jamison (didn't recognize him at first because of the 'stache, did you?) are fun, they're irrelevant.  That's a shame because this film has enough potential to drive itself for the entire hour.  The golf scene in and of itself should have been spun off into a short.

I have to admit that I didn't laugh until Harry thought he laid the egg.  That moment was fantastic and only works with Harry Langdon.  This doesn't mean that the scene where he removes the bullets from the gun isn't clever, but it's not that funny either.  The second time I laughed was when Gladys McConnell is sitting in the kitchen crying (some friends leaving her when she's in distress) and getting the mascara all over herself.  McConnell herself reportedly suggested that gag and regretted it years later.

In short, you have a series of short and funny gags interspersed with long moments of humorless and often head-scratching sequences.  The premise of Harry having to cook, clean, etc. alone should have made an hour, especially with the concept of all the delivery men (etc.) being lecherous and oblivious.  Instead, we have moment after moment of missed opportunities.

It's a meh film that could have been a career acme epic.

[HomokHarcos]

I had fun watching this, but I think it could have been done better, mainly the part about him adopting traditionally feminine clothing and gender roles.

I would have liked it better if Harry was genuinely into the dress and liked cooking and cleaning, and tying up with the confusion aspect of his character, genuinely didn't understand why people were laughing at him and mocking him for it. That would be an intriguing story, and interesting for the time period.

Just like the attempted murder scene in Long Pants, the suicide scene here seems to be quite controversial. I, enjoying dark humor to some extent, thought it was pretty funny and cartoon-like. I know it's not to everybody's tastes, however. The golf scene was quite random and a detour from the main film, but it was enjoyable. Agreed it could have been its own short, though.

Harry Langdon's First National films were mostly good, it's too bad Heart Trouble is lost. I'd be ecstatic if that movie or Hats Off turned up.

[Umbrella Sam]

Yeah, I’m going to be the dissenter here; I thought that this was a bad movie. I don’t like the set up, the characters are annoying, it’s not funny most of the time and there’s a particularly insulting sequence in the middle. There is one funny sequence here, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Starting with the setup, I think this was handled very poorly. HomokHarcos hits the nail on the head; the fact that this situation is a punishment for Harry is what really makes it intolerable for me. For one thing, they don’t actually show him being a so-called “Chaser” at the beginning. He is at the end, but at the beginning, literally all he does is watch other people doing the thing he’s accused of. That’s it; he’s at this lodge watching others, which is weird, sure, but they’re making all these accusations against him and treat him like he deserves to be punished for these things he didn’t do! The wife and the mother-in-law are incredibly unlikable; I can see what they were going for in having the wife and him reversing roles at the breakfast table, but it doesn’t work because we never saw their life before this. We don’t see Harry acting the same way that Gladys does in the husband role, it just comes across as her treating him like garbage the whole first half. I especially hate the part where she brings all her friends home to show them what she’s done to him; she enjoys seeing him humiliated, it’s really painful to watch.

I didn’t like the egg sequence either; you spend way too much time watching Harry holding what looks like a dead chicken in his hands before getting into this dumb mix up with him thinking he’s laid an egg. Add in another bad sequence with Harry dealing with a guy coming to repossess unpaid objects (during which Harry’s wife yells at him for simply trying to get her approval on the repossession), and you have the build up to the worst scene in the movie...

The suicide scene. Here’s my thing with suicide gags: there’s a right moment and time for it, it has to be handled a certain way for it to work. In cartoons like Looney Tunes, they were generally over exaggerated to a point where there was little to no realism in it. When Keaton and Lloyd did it, it was early on in shorts where their troubles, though bad, were not constantly forced down the audience’s throats. Here, Langdon’s character has literally made headlines, he’s become a poster boy for this dumb punishment and is feeling the wrath of everyone. People constantly treat him terribly, and it gets to a point where it breaks him. This man is falling apart before our very eyes, and they decide this is an appropriate time to do a suicide gag? Making it even worse is that it’s castor oil that he accidentally drinks; it adds insult to injury.

So after that horrendous sequence and a really weird scene with Gladys McConnell crying, we get to the only good part of this movie: the scene with Harry and Bud playing golf. This is the only part of this movie that I laughed at consistently; yeah, Bud has the mustache, but you can’t deny he’s easily recognizable with that scared reaction to the dog digging through the hole. I love seeing him break his clubs in rage, Harry messing around with Bud while he’s stuck in the hole...this is the kind of stuff I wish this movie had more of. But no, instead we follow it with another bad scene where Harry and Bud come across a group of women and Harry basically becomes what everyone at the beginning was saying he was; the whole gag here is that he kisses women and makes them faint. He does it in SOLDIER MAN too, but at the very least the character is his wife in a dream sequence who is attempting to murder him; it comes across as much creepier here.

So in the end we have an unlikable wife, an unlikable husband, a very bad attempt at commentary on gender roles, a horrendous suicide scene, and a few funny moments with Bud Jamison. To me, there’s no question that this is the worst of the Langdon features, far worse than LONG PANTS. If you want to see this idea done better, I would recommend the Goofy cartoon, FATHER’S DAY OFF. Yes, it’s sexist and dated, but so is this movie, and unlike this movie, you have the main character willingly taking on the gender reversal while also managing to stay consistently funny throughout. Maybe Langdon could have pulled this off as a short, but as a feature, this does not hold together at all.

[metaldams]

      Paul mentioned the word in his review surrealism and I think that’s appropriate when it comes to THE CHASER.  It’s a hodgepodge of gender and sexual confusion that probably made some members of the audience of 1928 uncomfortable and probably makes some members of the audience today uncomfortable - for very different reasons.  In 1928, probably the idea of men kissing on screen was considered scandalous, today it, along with the dress part, is not a sensitive enough portrayal.  Funny how changing cultural norms paint differently the same picture in one’s mind.

      It’s 1928.  Women were given the right to vote only eight years ago.  Men worked for a living, women stayed home in the kitchen and kept the house clean and the babies fed.  My grandparents were all born in the 20’s (my grandmother would have turned 100 this past Wednesday, making her exactly twenty years younger than Larry Fine), and that was the world they knew and that’s how I knew them.  This film and all other silent comedies were made by the generation before them.  Sam mentioned the breakfast scene falls flat because we’re not shown their life before.  I think in 1928, it didn’t need to be shown on screen.  It was simply understood Harry worked and wore pants and a jacket and tie and Gladys worked on the home and wore a skirt.  The whole point of the scene is they were acting and dressing the opposite of the expected norm.  Your opinion on the comic value of that may vary, but I’ve never been a fan of gender bending comedy anyway - including “the two greatest comedies of all time” in SOME LIKE IT HOT and TOOTSIE.

      The idea of Harry being OK wearing a skirt - the idea of an openly transgender comedian in an American comedy was simply not going to happen in 1928, it simply goes against the backdrop of the times this film was made.  That critique for a film made in 2022?  Fair enough, a debate can be had, but I just can’t see it in 1928 and would never expect it out if Langdon.

      So from a comedy perspective, socio analysis aside, I actually really like the opening.  Harry Langdon was meant to have an overbearing mother in law like that.  Her going on a rampage and Harry freezing up works incredibly well and I love the phone gag too.  The whole sexual confusion I find interesting for Langdon - first he’s kissed by a man and is repulsed, then later on he openly invites a kiss from the milk man.  Shortly after, he goes on a Barrymore/Valentino He-Man rampage by kissing the ladies and making them faint.  Of course it would be bizarre in real life, but through the lenses of surrealism, which is how I view this, I find the whole thing hysterical.  It’s the blank look and stillness of Langdon after the kisses combined with that silly lodge uniform that makes this part work for me.  I think the suicide scene is, how would Shakespeare word it?  A bit meh.  However, I’m always fascinated by how long the camera is held with Harry’s body under the blanket.

      So yes, an interesting film for sure.  Not to everybody’s taste and I totally get it, but for me, not exactly my go to Langdon film, but one I’ll watch once in a while when looking for something different.  Admittedly, if this were the norm for silent comedy, I doubt I’d be a fan.  A bit of a let down after the poignancy of THREE’S A CROWD, yet with that being a commercial failure, Langdon must have been desperate to try something different and that he did.

     
Paul, are you going to be doing the Roach and Educational shorts next now that we’re done with the silents?

[metaldams]

….and I want to add, the dog coming out if the grave pre dates any zombie film!

[HomokHarcos]

I have the Harry Langdon Roach set on DVD, I was thinking of starting threads for those.

[Paul Pain]

I intend to do as much Langdon as possible.  Unfortunately, it appears the entirety of his Roach and Educational eras might be unavailable online, but most of the talkie movies are at least.

[metaldams]

I remember there was a time the Roach talkies were on YouTube, but they may have been removed since the DVD set was released.

Paul, just keep posting what you’re posting at whatever pace works for you - I have a feeling you’re going to do films I haven’t seen yet, which is cool.

Homok, you can do the Roach shorts at whatever pace you wish.