Long Pants: Frank Capra

"[Harry] Langdon's magic was in his innocence, and Capra took beautiful care not to meddle with it...Langdon became quickly and fantastically popular with three pictures, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, The Strong Man and Long Pants; from then on he went downhill even faster." - James Agee

This film was just unpleasant. It was too long, plodding, and not very funny. There was only two inspired pieces of slapstick in the whole thing. The second one was an admittedly brilliant bit about hiding a woman in a large box that gets misplaced for an identical one containing an alligator. But the first? It involved Langdon's babyface persona trying and failing to straight up murder a woman who wanted to marry him. The whole sequence doesn't work. If the entire film had been morbid, maybe it would have. But the film operates under the same casual logic and tone as Langdon's other movies. So it just comes across as mean-spirited and cruel. I've had enough with Langdon. If somebody wanted to learn about his work, I'd recommend they watch The Strong Man (1926) and then stop.

5/10

The Strong Man: Frank Capra

"[Harry] Langdon's magic was in his innocence, and Capra took beautiful care not to meddle with it...Langdon became quickly and fantastically popular with three pictures, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, The Strong Man and Long Pants; from then on he went downhill even faster." - James Agee

I certainly enjoyed this Langdon film better than Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1926). For one, Langdon's nonplussed, child-like personality is really funny here. Nowhere is this more apparent than a scene where a prostitute tries to get his attention by dramatically fainting in public. He pauses, regards her, and walks away. And yes, this whole sequence is a vignette designed solely to stretch out the film's runtime, but it still works. One of the best scenes in the film involves Langdon doing shtick for his blind girlfriend. There's a lovely shot of him bashfully hiding his blushing face behind his hat. Overall, the film sorta stumbles about until the third act. But what a third act! Acrobatics and madness that would impress even Buster Keaton!

7/10

Tramp, Tramp, Tramp: Harry Edwards, Frank Capra

"[Harry] Langdon's magic was in his innocence, and Capra took beautiful care not to meddle with it...Langdon became quickly and fantastically popular with three pictures, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, The Strong Man and Long Pants; from then on he went downhill even faster." - James Agee

Well, I hope Langdon went uphill soon after Harry Edwards and Frank Capra's Tramp, Tramp, Tramp because, in all honestly, I wasn't particularly impressed by it. It's too slow, doesn't build up any forward momentum like the films of Harold Lloyd (which also tend to start slow before creating considerable inertia), and quite frankly, it isn't that funny. The Langdon persona hear was more infuriating than it was charming: he's incompetent, idiotic, and selfish. I understand that innocence was his whole shtick. But there's a difference between innocence and being a self-centered, clumsy moron.

5/10

Grandma's Boy: Fred C. Newmeyer

"[Harold Lloyd] was especially good at putting a very timid, spoiled or brassy young fellow through devastating embarrassments. He went through one of his most uproarious Gethsemanes as a shy country youth courting the nicest girl in town in Grandma's Boy..." - James Agee

According to that reliable font of information, wikipedia, Fred C. Newmeyer's Grandma's Boy was instrumental in pioneering feature-length comedies which "combined gags with character development." At times it feels like three different comedies spliced together into one: a young man nervously courting a beautiful young woman only to repeatedly make a fool out of himself; a flashback to Lloyd's grandfather who captured a Union code for the Confederacy during the Civil War (easily the most entertaining segment of the film); Lloyd going after a dastardly criminal armed with the courage he gained from a mysterious family heirloom said to give bravery to whoever holds it. All of these films work together perfectly well on their own. And though the film can't smooth all the bumps in-between these sections, the film works well as a whole. It's not Lloyd's funniest or most memorable, but it's entertaining enough.

7/10

Never Give a Sucker an Even Break: Edward F. Cline

"Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (Universal) is not a movie; it is 70 minutes of photographed vaudeville by polypnosed W. C. Fields...as such, it is strong drink for cinemaddicts who believe that the Great Man can do no wrong, small beer for those who think that even a Fields picture should have a modicum of direction." - James Agee

I disagree with Agee on the point that the film was poorly directed. If anything, it has one of the tightest narratives I've seen yet in a Fields film. This is due in large part to the framing device of Fields playing himself as he pitches story ideas to a movie studio executive. Respectable schtick—including a hilarious sequence involving the same studio head getting harried by a rowdy production crew while working with a young actress—dominates the first 20 or so minutes. But after that it's off to the races as the film illustrates Fields' bizarre, absurd flights of fancy. This may be my favorite Fields film, even more so than The Bank Dick (1940), simply because it made me laugh more than any of his other work.

8/10