Misbehaving Husbands

Sort of like an extended Three's Company sketch, except made in the 1930's, 'Misbehaving Husbands' stars Harry Langdon as an overworked oaf who forgets his anniversary and winds up working through the surprise party is wife has organized. What's worse, he gets caught in silhouette with a department store mannequin by some town gossips who are on their way to the party. Soon, rumors spread like wildfire, and one complication leads to another until the wife wants a divorce! This is all put together very nicely, thank you very much, and Harry Langdon does his befuddled Benny Goodman impersonation quite well. There's a few laughs here and there, but this is nothing extraordinary.

I can imagine this film was a big event for Harry Langdon. After his three self-directed features failed to be popular with audiences in the late 1920s, his star power dropped and he went back to starring in short subjects and playing featured role through the 1930s. He briefly got to be Stan Laurel's replacement alongside Oliver Hardy in the Hal Roach Studios feature "Zenobia" in 1939, but that gig ended when Hardy was freed from his Roach contract and reunited with Laurel. 1940's "Misbehaving Husbands," even though it was produced by PRC, one of the poorest studios around, was Langdon's first chance in a long time to carry a feature on his own.

Fortunately, Harry is great, and I give him even more credit than usual for developing new dimensions to his performance. He takes the innocent, bewildered, childlike character that made him famous, and "grow him up," so to speak, enough to believably be the hardworking but oblivious middle-aged department store owner that "Misbehaving Husbands" calls for. His funniest qualities, the delayed reactions, the uncertain twitchiness, and all are still present in spades, and happily the camera here gives him a chance to play to his strengths, such as in the scene where he wildly indicates everything in the house that is "his," then jumps to the couch chastised when a statue begins to fall.

The director is the infamous William "One Shot" Beaudine, known for his quick production of mystery and horror films for cheap studios. He was never known his comedies, and sure enough this film is not played for broad or wacky comedy. Beaudine clearly knows how to be efficient, but to let Langdon play slower when he needs to. The tone of the whole film is slightly odd, though (see the early scene in the department store window). There's a comic lead and a solid comic premise with complications to develop, but it often has the feel of a serious story about a divorce following a tragic misunderstanding. Ineffably, there is a sense sometimes that Harry Langdon is comic relief in his own starring film.

The story is solid material despite some wildly implausible plot points that I found forgivable. The parts that Luana Walters and Ralph Byrd play seem rather shoehorned in as a halfhearted concession to the need for romantic leads, though it's interesting to see Byrd doing some detective work outside his famous Dick Tracy role.

Without Harry Langdon's performance this would be a completely standard 1940s B-feature domestic comedy, but that performance makes it well worth the watch.

Misbehaving Husbands is a delightful period comedy that is well worth a look. Harry Langdon is Henry Butler, the owner of a department store about to have a big annual sale and it's all that he can think of. In fact, it's made him forget his wedding anniversary, This will, of course, lead to trouble, especially under the influence of his wife Effie's newly divorced friend. When a series of mishaps is misinterpreted by almost everyone concerned, a divorce is threatening in the Butler household. A shady divorce lawyer enters the picture and hell breaks loose.

What happens after this would be impossible today as this movie is rooted in its time as surely as a restoration comedy is in its time. Henry and Effie Butler's mores are set squarely in the 30's, but Langdon's picture of the work-a-holic store owner is convincing because he plays it straight. He walks through the story like an innocent and comes out the end just about as innocent, whereas his wife Effie (Betty Blythe) comes out a little wiser in the end. The allusions to Three's Company are a bit misleading. This is more like I Love Lucy minus the Spanish accent and the scenery chewing. It is definitely situation comedy. but Langdon makes it work with his deft portrayal of the bumbling but effective Henry.

This movie is too short to be a main feature and probably was then, but it must have been a great curtain raiser then. Now, it certainly rates an hour of our time.

Stories like this bother me, when the resolution of their problems seems so simple to me. Goofy plot about mistaken marital unfaithfulness. Just a little communication would fix all this. It's probably the engineer in me, who resents suspending disbelief in such deep and disturbing ways, just to go along with an improbable story. Anyway, Langdon is always a gem to watch. His acting abilities are broad in scope, and he manages to manufacture yet another character in this talkie. With better direction and a decent budget, this could have been Langdon's Screw Ball Comedy, like Lloyd's "Milky Way," or Hitchcock's "Mr. and Mrs. Smith". The fun operates in three realms here. The overacting of the domestic help, behaving in caricature. Then there is Harry fumbling about, this time as a slightly eccentric businessman. And third, we have a young couple (each of them somehow related to Harry and his wife) as they set out to unmask the unscrupulous lawyer, who figures to profit from a needless divorce. This is another must-see for Langdon fans, but I would not show it on classic movie night with the guys.

This is a slight comedy about a sleazy divorce lawyer and mistaken identity adultery from low budget studio Monogram, directed by its ace "One Shot" William Beaudine. His films generally range from mediocre to tolerable. This one is in the tolerable range.

It would not be worth watching except that this is one of the few feature films that Harry Langdon did in the last 15 years of his career. He was in about 50 shorts and had a half dozen supporting roles, but Harry was only featured in four or five films during the sound era.

Langdon had the most tragic career of the four Hollywood silent screen greats, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Harry Langdon. Chaplin and Lloyd were always regarded as geniuses. Keaton was rediscovered and celebrated ten years before he died. Only Langdon was forgotten and died in obscurity at age 60 in 1945.

Despite terrible second rate material, shot quickly at a third rate studio, Langdon manages to be funny in every scene he is in. Notice the scene at the end where he comes out of a bar after having one drink. This two minute scene has almost nothing to do with the plot, but Langdon is just hilarious improvising and riffing on his own.

This is a skip-it for anyone else, but a must-see for Langdon and slapstick comedy fans.