The False Ducks Blahg

      Here we are April 2018 and the sun has decided to come back to us here in the North; Canada that is. This past month has been brutal with cold and snow and freezing rain and little done by me to advance toward even writing a blahg.  Oh, I’ve done a lot of thinking about about it but the motivation just wasn’t there.  When you’re rubbing your hands together to try and keep warm then your fingers aren’t really free to type.  So, this blahg is a little later this month and is a mish-mash of things; a hodge-podge if you will.  Don’t you just love fancy words to describe variety or essentially everything chucked into the pot to make a stew? 

      So, what have I been up to?  Reading.  That should impress you but don’t be fooled.  Reading was only part of it.  I didn’t exercise.  Ate comfort food.  Watched a lot of videos; both television and movies.  Generally did nothing to speak of but writing about it is another thing altogether.  The reading part was to advance my mind while my body went to seed.  Some of the video watching was actually connected to some of the reading I was doing.  If you read on, you will find out more. 

     I like to think I am an avid reader but the truth is I’m a selective reader.  I don’t read many novels and if I do it’s usually not anything new.  The last new novel I read was “Go Set A Watchman” by Harper Lee and even that was just a reprinting of a version of “To Kill A Mockingbird” that she had submitted early on to her publisher.  Before that, the last novel I read was probably “The Ravine” by the late great Paul Quarrington or “Out of Oz” from the Wicked series of novels by Gregory Maguire.  “The Ravine” was 2008 and “Out of Oz” was 2011 so who’s to say which one I read first.  I’m not a fan of modern literature and am more likely to be caught reading a classic or something that’s at least 40 years old; after all I was an English major. 

     If you care to ask, where my passion lies in terms of the bulk of my reading habits are biographies and autobiographies.  Let me be clear about that though, again I am not a fan of modern celebrity tell-alls and you’re more likely to catch me reading about stars from years gone by.  A couple of months back I read the autobiography “The Million Dollar Mermaid” by swimming star turned actress Esther Williams.  It was a fascinating book about a star I knew little about and about the golden age of musicals at MGM in the 1940s and 1950s.  After that I read “Growing Up Laughing” by Marlo Thomas.  I like Marlo Thomas and am a fan of hers and her father Danny Thomas.  The book was an okay read but it tried to analyze comedy too much with interviews by current famous comedians.  Some of the interviews worked and some didn’t.  The best part of the book was when she talked about her father or when she told of her work in television and movies.  I think I have my own ideas about comedy thank you very much. 

     I should interject here to say that over the past couple of years I have also read some very fine biographies.  Not all of the famous movie stars or celebrities got around to writing their own life histories.  Sometimes a well researched biography is just as good and can be very enthralling.  Case in point, there were three biographies I read over the past few years that were great reads.   “Jimmy Stewart, A Biography” by Marc Eliot was fascinating and taught me a great deal about one of my favorite movie stars.  As far as actors go, there was never such a wholesome actor with such a great range of acting.  I also enjoyed “The Man Who Saw a Ghost: The Life and Work of Henry Fonda” by Devin McKinney.  Henry Fonda was another one of those great actors who had a lot going on inside.  He was a very intense man and actor.  The most recent biography that I read was “Bogart” by Ann Sperber and Eric Lax.  Bogart also was one of those fascinating actors who was a complicated individual but had an interesting career and personal life.  I highly recommend all three books. 

     Last fall I found out about a book in which I did not have a lot of faith.  In fact, I thought it was probably a totally unnecessary book that would be both boring and a botch job.  Boy was I wrong.  “The Final Film of Laurel and Hardy: A Study of the Chaotic Making and Marketing of Atoll K” by Norbert Aping was one of the most well researched and intensely spellbinding books I have ever read about a single film.  “Atoll K” was Laurel and Hardy’s last film together and this book is a detailed “study of the chaotic making and marketing of Atoll K”.  I lifted that quote right from the cover because I cannot find a better way to describe the contents.  If you are a fan of Laurel and Hardy then you have to read this book.  I had only ever seen “Atoll K” in butchered prints released as “Utopia”.  Fortunately there is a new digitally remastered DVD of the Director’s cut of the U.S. version of”Atoll K” available from FunFactoryFilms.  Read the book first and then watch the DVD.  I had to watch it a couple of times and pause at points and refer back to information from the book.  Both the book and this new DVD are a must for Laurel and Hardy fans; even if you never liked “Atoll K”. 

     So what have I read lately?  That’s a good question and I have a good answer.  It will also link to what I’ve been watching lately.  I’ll tell you the name of the book before I tell you about it.  It’s “Harry Langdon: King of Silent Comedy” by Gabriella Oldham and Mabel Langdon (Harry Langdon’s third and final wife).  The book also has a foreword by Harry Langdon Jr.  It’s been many years in the making and many had despaired that it would ever be completed.  Many of you may be scratching your head and wondering who Harry Langdon was.  If you’re a fan of silent screen comedy then you already know.  Many, including myself, put him up there among the greats with Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton.  At least one of those names should ring a bell.  Simply put, Harry Langdon was, at his best, as good as those three but uniquely different as well.  I can’t really give you a run down on him in 25 words or less.  I don’t think even one blahg would be enough to tell you why Harry Langdon deserves his comedy legend status. 

     What some people will tell you about Harry Langdon is all they know from Wikipedia or repeated hack sources.  He burned bright, he was popular, he got a swelled head and made some bad films, and then he faded away.  Most of that is very far from the truth.  He did burn bright and was popular for a time and some believe his last silent films weren’t very good.  Essentially Harry Langdon was a latecomer to films.  He didn’t start making films until 1923/1924 after more than 20 years of a successful run in vaudeville.  He was almost 40 before he came to the silver screen.  Compare that to Keaton who started out with Roscoe Arbuckle in 1917 when Keaton was 22.  Harold Lloyd was 20 when he started in 1913 and Chaplin was 24 when he was on the screen also in late 1913/early 1914.  Langdon was twice the age of Lloyd when he started out and he would only have 5 years before silent films were out and talkies were in.  Keaton had a decade in silent films to perfect his craft and Lloyd and Chaplin had a decade and a half.  As I said, Harry Langdon was a latecomer but what he did during that time was both fascinating and groundbreaking. 

     Harry Langdon only made five silent film features:  “His First Flame”,  “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp” (1926), “The Strong Man” (1926), “Long Pants” (1927), “Three’s A Crowd” (1927), “The Chaser” (1928),  and “Heart Trouble” (1928).  “His First Flame” was made around 1925/26 but was not released until 1927.  Harry’s other output during this time were silent shorts.  Frank Capra worked with him on his first three features but Harry Langdon directed himself starting with “Long Pants” and that’s when some say he got a swelled head and the quality changed for the worse.  I don’t believe that’s all true.  I think he was getting some bad advice from others around him after Capra left but I think “Three’s A Crowd” was meant to be Harry’s masterpiece like Harold Lloyd’s “Kid Brother” and Keaton’s “The General”.  Chaplin had many great films like “City Lights” but I don’t know if anyone would agree which of his films were meant to be his masterpiece.  Chaplin would have said they all were.  Getting back to Langdon, “Three’s A Crowd” is a very moving picture with some very funny bits.  “The Chaser” is a bit of a let down but has some funny moments as well.  As for “Heart Trouble”, we may never know because it is considered a lost film.  If you want to read a fascinating blog that tracks the last showings of “Heart Trouble” in Australia from 1928 to 1931 then check out http://cablecarguy.blogspot.ca/2013/08/harry-langdon-heart-trouble-in.html.

     Harry Langdon didn’t just fade away after sound film came in.  He was popular for a time and I think his character adapted well to sound.  Check out this promo announcing Harry Langdon joining the Hal Roach studios to make sound shorts: 

I don’t know about you but I think his character translated very well and was very funny.  Unfortunately “HOTTER THAN HOT” and “SKY BOY”, his first two official sound shorts currently only survive as film only without their soundtracks and are not available for viewing anywhere.  Quite a few of Harry Langdon’s sound shorts with Hal Roach, Educational, and Columbia are available to view on Youtube and I’ve been watching them over this past month.  Some are better than others but all prove that he continued to work right up until his death in 1944 at aged 60.  He made shorts and features in the sound era but would never have the heights of popularity he had for that small window of time during the last half decade of the silent film era. 

      I think I’ll end this blahg here.  I’ve been dwelling a lot on Harry Langdon lately.  You could say I’m just wild about Harry.  We are lucky, despite the missing lost films, to have a great number of Harry Langdon’s silent shorts and films available on DVD.  First we have the great box set “Lost and Found: The Harry Langdon Collection” that contains most of his surviving silent shorts and his first feature, “His First Flame”.  The set also contains a great documentary “Harry Langdon: Lost and Found – A Story in Five Parts”.  Then there’s the Kino release “Harry Langdon…The Forgotten Clown” which boasts the three features, “Tramp, Tramp, Tramp” (1926), “The Strong Man” (1926), and “Long Pants” (1927).  Finally there’s another Kino release of “Three’s A Crowd” and “The Chaser”.  Again, I think “Three’s A Crowd” is so much better than most say.  Of course, there’s also “The Chaser” which is where we have to end because there’s no sign of “Heart Trouble”.  Maybe that too will turn up one day.  Anyone want to sponsor my hunting expedition to sunny Australia in search of that lost film?  It would make one hell of a blahg when I get back…whether I find the film or not.