His Bridal Sweet

I think the sporadic series of talkie shorts that Harry Langdon starred in for Columbia Pictures from 1934 until his death in 1944 often tends to get overlooked, and, as a consequence underrated. I've seen some very funny films from it, but unfortunately this doesn't seem to be one of the funnier ones.

The story is that Harry has just been married and visits a Honeymoon home where he encounters trouble from all the so-called "modern conveniences" it features, then in a strangely grim turn of events, everyone touring the house is quarantined in a smallpox scare. Langdon's comedy comes from his unique, delicate character and how he reacts to the troubles that surround him; this short mainly fails to take advantage of that. The gags are mainly mechanical and rely pretty unsuccessfully on the silliness of the inventions and audience technophobia to win smiles.

The premise here wasn't all bad, and Harry Langdon was certainly no stranger to getting laughs from his baffled interactions to inanimate objects (especially mannequins), but here the focus is almost all on the prop, not Harry. It's a real waste of his talents.

Then there's Billy Gilbert, often a delightfully eccentric or bizarre second banana for many comedians. Here, though. he's taken a little too far without much of a defined role. He seems to be some kind of drunk / madman / possibly-violent-killer / homosexual-threat / former-fabric-salesman who shows up for no reason and ends up chasing Harry around thinking he is a bottle of liquor. This is all supposed to be great comedy hijinx, but it is definitely a situation where some method to the madness would make everything work out nicer.

There are a few nice laughs here, largely from Harry working his distinctive bits of business in between events (such as his attempts to get his money back from the house's strange air conditioner. Overall though, its unfortunate how the particular comic talents of Harry Langdon and Billy Gilbert are misused or pushed aside for some unimaginative prop comedy.

Harry Langdon and Geneva Mitchell are newly married. On the way to the train station, they stop in to look at a model modern home with all the convenicnes. When that turns out to include smallpox, they are quarantined with the rest of the customers, and the large number means the ladies sleep together and Harry has to share a bed with hallucinating drunk Billy Gilbert.

Although Harry is the nominal star, Billy steals the show with his incongruous behavior, his ramblings about having killed a man, and his insistence that he won't kill Harry if he quacks like a duck. Harry provides his amusing befuddled reactions, as would anyone.

The story begins with Harry getting married. While they are waiting to take the train for their honeymoon, they go see a 'House of the Future' being demonstrated. Unfortunately, one of the folks there has Smallpox and everyone is quarantined. Instead of spending his wedding night with his bride, Harry is forced to room with a psychotic drunk.

When you watch the lovely silent movies that Harry Langdon made and then compare them to "His Bridal Sweet", you can't help but notice how different they are from each other. Although his silents were popular, when Langdon left the studio and went out on his own, the plots he was given just didn't fit the nice persona he'd created. So, while "His Bridal Sweet" is not a terrible film, it is for Langdon....and he ended up making years and years of sub-par movies like it. What a waste.