Here Comes Mr. Zerk

Eminent scientist Harry Langdon -- that's what it says here, so don't blame me -- is to marry Shirley Patterson. His picture appears in the newspaper, right next to escaped lunatic John T. Murray, with the captioned reversed. Now everyone thinks Harry is a lunatic and so forth.

For a short comedy directed by Jules White, it's not too bad, what with a large assortment of skilled comic actors -- including Heinie Conklin, Vernon Dent, Fred Kelsey, and Hank Mann showing up for small bits. White had an excessively grotesque sense of humor, and he seemed unable to use any comic in a manner that suited his or her unique abilities; the same loud, violent gags every time -- but at least he kept some of the old-timers working.

The running time for this short was about 15 minutes and unless the time listed on IMDB is right, then a few minutes were trimmed from this comedy short. However, it seemed to be all there....who knows?!

The idea for "Here Comes Mr. Zerk" is a potentially funny one. It begins with a newspaper editor yelling at an employee for mixing up the captions on a news story. In this case, Egbert (Harry Langdon) is labeled as an escaped maniac and the maniac is listed as a professor who is getting married! Not surprisingly, when folks see Egbert, they assume he's insane and act accordingly. He hasn't seen the paper and has no idea why folks are acting so strangely and aggressively towards him!

This is a funny idea. But the problem is that the film was made by incompetents who had little in the way of timing or humor. So, instead of being funny, it all comes off as very forced and lacking all subtlety. Worth seeing only if you are a die-hard Harry Langdon fan...otherwise, easy to skip.