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Henry Philmore " Harry" Langdon (June 15, 1884 – December 22, 1944) was an American actor and comedian who appeared in vaudeville, (where he had his greatest fame), and talkies.Obituary Variety, December 27, 1944, page 39.
After his initial success, Langdon fired Capra and directed his own films, including Three's a Crowd, The Chaser, and Heart Trouble, but his appeal faded. These films were more personal and idiosyncratic, and audiences of the period were not interested. Capra later claimed that Langdon's decline stemmed from the fact that, unlike the other great silent comics, he never fully understood what made his own film character successful. However, Langdon's biographer Bill Schelly, among others, expressed skepticism about this claim, arguing that Langdon had established his character in vaudeville long before he entered movies, added by the fact that he wrote most of his own material during his stage years. History shows that Langdon's greatest success was while being directed by Capra, and once he took hold of his own destiny, his original film comedy persona dropped sharply in popularity with audiences. This is likely not due to Langdon's material, which he had always written himself, but due to his inexperience with the many fine points of directing, at which Capra excelled, but at which Langdon was a novice. On the other hand, a look at Langdon's filmography shows that Capra directed only two of Langdon's 30 silent comedies. His last silent film, and the last one Langdon directed, Heart Trouble, is a "lost film", so it is difficult to assess whether he might have begun achieving a greater understanding of the directorial process with more experience. The coming of sound, and the drastic changes in cinema it engendered, also thwarted Langdon's chances of evolving as a director and perhaps defining a style that might have enjoyed greater box office success.
Langdon was still a big enough name to command leads in short subjects. He reunited with his Sennett co-star Vernon Dent for a series of two-reelers with Educational Pictures in 1932-34. Columbia Pictures, initiating its own short-comedy unit, hired Langdon away from Educational in 1934. In 1938, beginning with the Columbia short A Doggone Mixup, Langdon adopted a Caspar Milquetoast-type, henpecked-husband character that served him well. He alternated this new character with his established "helpless innocent" character.
Langdon was considered to be the live-action role model for Dopey in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but Walt Disney rejected the idea. Eddie Collins played the role instead.
In 1938 Langdon returned to the Hal Roach studio for a surprise guest appearance in the screwball comedy feature There Goes My Heart. While at Roach he contributed to comedy scripts as a writer, notably for Laurel and Hardy. When Stan Laurel's contract with Roach expired, Oliver Hardy's contract was still in force, leading Roach to cast Langdon opposite Hardy in the 1939 antebellum comedy Zenobia.
Misbehaving Husbands turned out to be Langdon's last starring feature; he shared two subsequent leads with co-star Charley Rogers. Langdon continued to play mild-mannered goofs in features (almost exclusively for Monogram) and slapstick short subjects for Columbia. Toward the end of the Columbia series, producer Jules White tried making Langdon part of a team, and paired him with Elsie Ames, Monty Collins, Una Merkel, and finally El Brendel.Ted Okuda with Edward Watz; The Columbia Comedy Shorts, McFarland & Company, 1986, p. 119.
At the height of his career, Langdon was making $7,500 per week, a fortune for the times. In his obituary the New York Times wrote that "his whole appeal was a consummate ability to look inexpressibly forlorn when confronted with manifold misfortunes—usually of the domestic type. He was what was known as 'dead-pan'...the feeble smile and owlish blink which had become his stock-in-trade caught on in a big way, and he skyrocketed to fame and fortune..." The New York Times, Obituary, December 23, 1944.
In 1997, his home town of Council Bluffs celebrated "Harry Langdon Day" and in 1999 named Harry Langdon Boulevard in his honor. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Harry Langdon has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard.
Langdon is briefly depicted in the biographical film Stan & Ollie, played by Richard Cant, where he is preparing for the shooting of Zenobia with Oliver Hardy.
Langdon's son, Harry Langdon Jr., went on to a successful career as a Hollywood photographer.
Comeback
In 1940 Harry Langdon made a comeback as a starring comedian in feature-length films. Misbehaving Husbands (1940) was a domestic comedy with Langdon using his henpecked-husband character. It was also a comeback film for the director, William Beaudine, an important silent-film director whose fortunes had declined by the late 1930s. Although Misbehaving Husbands was produced and released by PRC, the tiniest of the Hollywood studios, Langdon and Beaudine received critical raves for their work: "Preview house rewarded them with practically solid laughter" ( Boxoffice); Boxoffice, Dec. 12, 1940, p. 10. "Easily Langdon's best performance in years" ( Motion Picture Daily). Motion Picture Daily, Dec. 17, 1940, p. 6. In the trade, the picture was noteworthy enough to re-establish both Langdon and Beaudine, albeit in low-budget features. They soon worked steadily at Monogram Pictures.
Death and recognition
Langdon suffered a cerebral hemorrhage during the filming of the Republic musical Swingin' on a Rainbow, and died on December 22, 1944. All funeral arrangements were handled by Langdon's old friend Vernon Dent. Okuda and Watz, pp. 115–123, 221–222. Langdon was cremated and his ashes interred at Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Critical appraisal
Film historian Richard Koszarski offers this assessment of Langdon's career:
Partial filmography
† – denotes entry part of the Columbia Pictures short subject series
See also
Further reading
External links
Categories: 1884 Births, 1944 Deaths, 20th-century American Male Actors, 20th-century American Comedians, 20th-century American Screenwriters, American Male Film Actors, American Male Silent Film Actors, Silent Film Comedians, American Vaudeville Performers, Male Actors From Iowa, People From Council Bluffs, Iowa, Hal Roach Studios Short Film Series, American Slapstick Comedians, Columbia Pictures Contract Players, Burials At Grand View Memorial Park Cemetery, Comedians From Iowa, American Male Comedians
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