This is the infamous short which is supposed to have killed Langdon: he had a cerebral hemorrhage and died soon after it was finished. Since it was 1: a Columbia short and 2: costarred El Brendel, who reasonably held the record of World's Worst Comic Actor between Al Joy -- who, by the way, turned out shorts that were no worse than your average 1970s situation comedy: not great perhaps, but relatively painless to anyone who has ever sat through a Brady Bunch marathon -- and Paulie Shore, it is supposed to be an awful short.
Think again. It is actually a pretty good short. True, it does have the usual Columbia monstrosities, but it also has a funny story, some good comic acting, Christina McIntyre gets to sing for a change and Harry and El do a fine little dance-and-piano number.
Shed no tears for Harry. He worked steadily in the movies, did some interesting work -- his PRC features are very funny -- and he lived a very comfortable life, just as Buster Keaton did in his last decade. He went out in harness turning out a good comedy. There's nothing wrong with that, and this one is a bit of all right too.
