Topic: The Big Flash (1932) - Harry Langdon and Vernon Detnt

[Paul Pain]

The top is grainy and complete.  The lower one is higher quality but has had bits shaved from it to make the film shorter.  I apologize if I've horned in on other's territory, but this was the next Harry Langdon film I found.

Harry Langdon adjusted to the sound era very nicely.  His voice, as metaldams said last week, matches his face, and even in talking he's still himself because now we get to hear all those silly things he would mouth before.  Here, he's back with his good friend Vernon Dent in THE BIG FLASH.

The plot should be familiar to you: bumbling fools need to get a big photo for a newspaper even though the fools aren't journalists.  Columbia pictures beat this one to death in that regard, but here it's sufficiently different and has a different cast that it feels fresh.

Harry Langdon is great in these moments where he just has to be a bumbling idiot and slowly work his way to some disaster.  A good example here is the chase at the end with all the luck involved and the way Harry is so focused on the picture that he disregards the situation he is in.  Such is the world in the eyes of Harry Langdon.

This isn't a classic Langdon film, but it's still got that chemistry unique to him and Vernon Dent.  They were real life friends, and it's easy to see how it translated into pictures.  There's no real classic moment here, but there are some moments like those we typically associate with the star and with the era.  Watch both videos so you can catch the quality and all the bits that matter and enjoy some Harry Langdon comfort food.

[Umbrella Sam]

The Langdon Educational series gets off to a decent start with THE BIG FLASH. Granted, a lot of the best gags here like the gag with Harry pretending to faint or getting caught in the middle of a shootout are reused from Langdon silents, but they still translate well to sound and we also get the advantage of getting to see more of a true Langdon-Dent pairing. You can really start to see signs of how the success of Laurel and Hardy was influencing this pairing; the part with Harry accidentally activating the gun in the office is pretty much just like the gag of Stan doing the same in PARDON US. It’s kind of ironic in a way when you consider what influence Langdon had on Stan Laurel. Dent and him work well off each other as expected and it’s even kind of nice seeing Dent briefly play against type at the very beginning when he’s bumbling around in the office. Like Paul says, there isn’t anything classic here, but Harry still does what he does best and it’s fun watching him do it even if he’s done a lot of it before.

[metaldams]

      Never saw this one before, really only familiar with the couple of Educationals on the LOST AND FOUND set.  A really fun short overall and I do get the feeling this is Harry going back to his roots - but in the setting of pre-code Hollywood.  Again, this time more so in the gags themselves, female legs show up in the comedy.  The gangster’s pretty girlfriend with loose morals heckling a comedian.  This character went away in July of 1934 never to return, but it works very well with a naive and innocent Langdon.  The idea of Langdon being separate from the rest of the world works comic wonders when he’s blatantly being hit on.  Done best in with Gertrude Astor in THE STRONG MAN, it works in miniature here, but with that extra pre code sheen. He simply covers up her legs very innocently.   Harry’s reaction to the kiss was awesome.  Yes, we’ve seen it before, but the physicality here is on another level.  When Harry was still, I thought for a split second he might be a piece of cardboard, I had to make sure that was actually Langdon.  Very well done.

      The rest you guys nailed.  Yes, Langdon and Dent are the almost but not quite Laurel and Hardy and it is indeed ironic since Langdon influenced Stan.  I too thought the reporter needing to get a picture plot did indeed have a Stooge/Columbia feel and it was nice seeing Harry rework old favorites like getting a police officer to chase him as well as being in the middle of a gun fight.  Harry’s again oblivious nature works wonders when asking the man about to rob the store to pose for a picture and through dumb chance, helps the man break the glass window of the store he’s robbing.  A fine short, I hope these Langdon Educationals get halfway decent restoration and released in a set someday.