Saturday Afternoon

Harry Langdon's Saturday Afternoon is sometimes ranked among the best and best-known silent comedies, at least in the short subject category, and therefore may come as a bit of a letdown for some viewers. Unlike some of the other widely recognized classics such as Keaton's Cops or Chaplin's Easy Street this film is in most respects a conventional situation comedy, certainly engaging and amusing but not chock-full of belly laughs; one might even wonder whether Langdon belongs in such rarefied company. I believe he does. Allowing for the familiarity of the premise this a perfectly charming comedy played in a minor key, and Harry is fascinating to watch.

For a modern viewer raised on TV sitcoms the plot of Saturday Afternoon may suggest The Honeymooners or its many spin-offs: two dim guys, one of whom is married and very much under his wife's thumb, try to sneak out with a couple of good-time girls for a fun afternoon. Inevitably everything goes wrong, and they wind up having to fight the girls' tough guy boyfriends. Does this sound familiar? Surely the premise was shopworn when this film was new, but beyond that nothing about Langdon was typical. He was odd, starting with the fact that he looked like a middle-aged baby who was half asleep. Any Freudians watching him here will have a field day with the scenes between this timid, pudgy-faced baby-man and his stern, gently domineering mommy-wife. See in particular the sequence when Harry tries to hide money under the rug, and the Missus catches him in the act and forces him to hand it over. You'd swear you're watching an interaction between a 6 year-old boy and his Mama. Maybe that's why Harry Langdon gave some people the creeps, and why some viewers find him hard to take.

But he's a compelling screen presence, and when he's funny it's not what he does so much as the way he does it. In that scene with the money under the rug, for instance, Harry finds the coins by placing one foot before the other, carefully, like a tightrope walker, counting off his paces until he finds the right spot. His technique is hypnotic. Langdon moved like no one else. Whether or not he makes you laugh, the guy is mesmerizing, seemingly in a world of his own. Where story is concerned Harry is often strangely passive, and almost never drives the plot himself. In the finale of Saturday Afternoon, when a big fistfight is taking place, Harry's co-star Vernon Dent is in the thick of the action, but Harry is in a daze for much of the time. He winds up sort of punch-drunk between two cars, sitting on the running board of one, but with his feet on the other, while the cars race through the streets. It's a memorable image, and, as the critic Walter Kerr wrote, it encapsulates Langdon's screen persona quite perfectly: he's a passive figure who somehow finds himself in the middle of frantic action, blinking sleepily while the world rushes past. It's also worth noting that Langdon and Dent, who worked together frequently, have a rapport that suggests a blueprint Laurel & Hardy would follow when they teamed up a year or so later. Langdon's style was a likely influence on Stan Laurel, especially here.

Saturday Afternoon and its star may not be for everyone, but the film is well worth a look. This is Harry Langdon in his prime, the silent screen's most unusual and beguiling comedian.

Saturday Afternoon (1926)

** (out of 4)

Fair 28-minute short has Harry Langdon playing Harry Higgins, a weak little man who is constantly being pushed around by his wife (Alice Ward) who believes the only place for a man is under her thumb. A buddy (Vernon Dent) talks Harry into coming out with him and a couple girls but it doesn't take long for everything to go wrong. Saturday AFTERNOON was co-written by Frank Capra but none of the magic he's known for managed to make its way onto the actual film. Overall this is a fairly amusing film that will at least keep you entertained from start to finish but there's still no question that it runs on way too long and for a comedy there just aren't enough laughs. In fact, I'd say after the opening sequence there aren't any laughs that follow and this here is certainly something that kills the film. I mean, how can you have a comedy with no laughs and it still work? I thought the early sequence of Langdon having to call home to the wife because he's going to be two-minutes late was pretty funny. After this we basically get scenes where not much is going on except for Langdon's sad face looking at the camera. I'll admit that I'm not the biggest Langdon fan as I'm usually hit and miss so perhaps those who love him will find more entertainment here than I did.

Henpecked husband Harry Langdon (as Harry Higgins) is described as, "just a crumb from the sponge cake of life." His wife Alice Ward believes, "The first step in losing any man is letting him have his own way." After missing a ride home from the steelyard, Mr. Langdon meets runabout pal Vernon Dent (as Steve Smith) and two attractive young women. Mr. Smith wants Langdon to spend "Saturday Afternoon" with him and the women. Despite being married, Langdon endeavors to keep the date. The quartet goes for a ride and meets not only their dates' boyfriends, but also Langdon's wife. Bending over and rolling around, rotund Mr. Dent needs a fresh pair of pants. The cars and location footage are the highlights.

**** Saturday Afternoon (1/31/26) Harry Edwards ~ Harry Langdon, Vernon Dent, Alice Ward, Ruth Hiatt

This short Harry Langdon comedy takes a very familiar plot and uses it to pretty good effect. There are no hilarious gags, but it is generally lively and fairly amusing, with a number of good moments. The plot has Harry trying to slip away from his domineering wife so that he can enjoy an afternoon of fun with his pal (Vernon Dent) - Laurel & Hardy used the same general idea in several films, as have numerous other comics. Langdon's distinctive, boyish style doesn't always work, but at times it is quite funny, and his approach gives this a somewhat different feel from other movies of the kind. He also has a good stunt with cars towards the end. Not a great movie, but one worth watching for fans of silent comedy.

"Saturday Afternoon" is one of Harry Langdon's best-known short subjects, and with good reason. It is one of his funniest and best films. The plot -- such as it is -- is an old staple: a hen-pecked husband sneaks away for a night out with a his pal and a couple of other girls. It's a solid and well-used comedy plot, but the difference here is Harry Langdon himself. His slow, ineffectual, befuddled, innocent character has somehow floundered his way into a marriage with a woman who feels that he of all people must be ruled with an iron fist, and he is only thrust into cheating on her because he can't say "no" to the exhortations of the chummy Vernon Dent and the cute eyelash-fluttering of the girl.

It's a very adult problem to be thrust onto such a helpless, childlike character. Harry doesn't want to cheat, but he can't do anything about it. In a wonderful bit of comic business, he can't bring himself to blow the new girlfriend kiss goodbye: he slyly pushes the kiss at her underhand and ashamedly wipes off his hand as if to chastise it. The film is a three-reel comedy, ten minutes longer than the two-reelers Harry Langdon had previously been starring in for Mack Sennett, with no more plot. Perhaps it was even designed to be a two-reeler. This works beautifully, since it gives him as much time as he needs to inject the slow reactions and bewildered glimpses and half-actions where so much of his comedy lives.

He's at his best here, and the show is really Harry Langdon's curious magic and ability to spin comedy out of almost nothing. His little half- smiles, his look while handling the money he has hidden under the rug, childlike attempts to enter the fight at the end. I think his comedy makes us recognize something fundamentally innocent and confused in ourselves that makes us feel like the whole world is too much for us, yet at the same time, by allowing us to understand what Harry does not (such as the fact that the women he good-heartedly brings to his friend to cheer him after he thinks the date has been blown are in fact whores) he forces his to realize with a little bit of sadness that we are not that innocent anymore. His comedy is just as capable of making us audibly say "Awwww" as it is making us laugh, often at once.

Here Harry wants to refuse to cheat on his wife, he wants to tell his wife whose boss and take some power back in his relationship, he wants to fight back against the two violent men at the end of the film, but he just can't affect his surroundings that much, and sometimes we all feel like that.

The film is perfectly directed by frequent Langdon director Harry Edwards; it moves at a quick pace and never stalls while at the same time making time for and presenting to best effect Harry Langdon's still, reactive comedy. Vernon Dent, a frequent foil to Langdon, plays one of the roles here where he becomes almost a comedy partner in his very effective pairing with Harry. The gags spaced out in a way that gives maximum effect too, and Harry gets his own version of a Lloyd or Keaton style stunt at the end. Here the comedy is not in Harry's big reactions to the danger of sitting perched between two moving cars, but in his slowness to take it in.

This is a hilarious film, and a perfect example of the comedy of one of the most unique an talented humorists that I know ever to have existed.