Long Pants

By the time silent comedian Harry Langdon made his third feature the strain behind the camera was beginning to show on screen: the storyline was more contrived; the gags more forced; and the premise even thinner than usual for a silent comedy. What's left to give the film any distinction is the compelling perversity of Langdon's character: an immature, innocent small town boy more than willing to be corrupted by an alluring big city siren.

As always Langdon's comic style was a curious mix of adolescent longings, adult responsibilities, and almost infantile facial tics and gestures, all of which worked best when the camera simply stood back and watched him improvise. This may not have involved anything more than an occasional, tentative change of posture or expression, and the process was so intuitive not even Langdon could define it. He later fell out with Frank Capra and tried to direct himself, with disastrous results, the worst (in the long run) being the sad fact that a unique and once unforgettable talent is today all but forgotten.