|
With his quizzical expression and childlike demeanor, Harry Langdon was
one of the slapstick cinema's brightest stars, a low-key alternative to his
more fast-paced contemporaries.
His hard-luck persona always had a melancholy air as he ambled through
life, blissfully ignorant of the pitfalls of modernity. In 1927, enjoying>
the power that came with owning his own production company, Langdon steered
his trademark character even further from the conventionalized slapstick of
his Mack Sennett background. His directorial debut, THREE'S A CROWD, didn't
just dabble in pathos, it plunged its hapless hero into a netherworld of
loneliness worthy of Samuel Beckett (a self-avowed Langdon fan). Harry
stars as a slum-dweller who invites a freezing woman (Gladys McConnell),
pregnant with another man's child, into his home. Nursing mother and child
back to health, he achieves his dream of having a family...or so he hopes.
Langdon's second film as director, THE CHASER (1928) is a dark, slightly
kinky comedy in which carousing Harry is ordered by a judge to swap domestic
duties (and clothing) with his wife. Deprived of his "manliness," Harry
contemplates suicide while coping with flirtatious salesmen and the scorn of
a former comrade.
This DVD of THREE'S A CROWD and THE CHASER is authored from new HD masters derived from the 35mm negatives held by the Raymond Rohauer estate. Due to decomposition of the original film elements, portions of THE CHASER are mastered from a 16mm print.
THREE'S A CROWD
U.S. 1927 Color Tinted 61 Min. Full-Frame (1.33:1)
Directed by Harry Langdon Story by Arthur Ripley
Adapted by Robert Eddy and James Langdon
Photographed by Frank Evans and Elgin Lessley
With Harry Langdon, Gladys McConnell, Cornelius Keefe
Organ Score by Lee Erwin
© 1927 First National Pictures
renewed © 1955 Warner Brothers
THE CHASER
U.S. 1928 B&W 63 Min. Full-Frame (1.33:1)
Directed by Harry Langdon Story by Arthur Ripley
Screenplay by Robert Eddy, Clarence Hennecke
and Harry McCoy
Photographed by Frank Evans and Elgin Lessley
With Harry Langdon, Gladys McConnell, Helen Hayward
Organ Score by Lee Erwin
© 1928 First National Pictures
renewed © 1955 Warner Brothers Pictures Inc.
Restored sound version © 1989 The Rohauer Collection |
