Harry Langdon, that pasty imp, enjoyed a brief renown in the heyday of silent comedy, assisted by his gagman-turned-director Frank Capra, then fired Capra and sank into a decades-long post-fame afterglow as a poverty row clown (briefly emerging to stand in for Laurel opposite Hardy in 1939's Zenobia). This portrait, painted by Capra, is somewhat true, but Capra embroidered it with his own self-aggrandizing version of events: Langdon didn't understand his own screen persona, which had been entirely created for him (mostly by Capra), and so without the guiding influence of greater talents, he sank inevitably into obscurity. Capra created a whole tragedy for his enemy, making Langdon sympathetic yet foolish, a man who achieved brief greatness thanks to the genius of others, but who lost out in the long result of time. Since none of Langdon's films were easily available for study when Capra was speaking, he got away with this.
- 6/21/2012
- MUBI
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