As both the local photographer and the sheriff, Harry must track down an arsonist and deal with his un-photogenic in-laws.As both the local photographer and the sheriff, Harry must track down an arsonist and deal with his un-photogenic in-laws.As both the local photographer and the sheriff, Harry must track down an arsonist and deal with his un-photogenic in-laws.
Billy Armstrong
- Father in Portrait Session
- (uncredited)
Louise Carver
- Mother in Portrait Session
- (uncredited)
Andy Clyde
- Minister
- (uncredited)
Cameo the Dog
- Cameo
- (uncredited)
Cecille Evans
- Member of Wedding Party
- (uncredited)
Gordon Lewis
- Fireman
- (uncredited)
- …
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe version in "Harry Langdon: Lost and Found' is 18 and a half minutes, not 10.
- ConnectionsFeatured in 30 Years of Fun (1963)
Featured review
Early Langdon, off to a shaky start
Smile Please was one of the first comedies made by comic Harry Langdon for the Mack Sennett Studio, and it's clear from the very outset that the writers had no idea what to do with him. Typically frantic Sennett gags involving a runaway horse and a flying car flash by so fast the viewer is disoriented, and Harry is just another blurred figure on the screen. When we first meet our hero he's a sheriff, involved in a confusing triangle situation with Alberta Vaughn as his girlfriend and Jack Cooper as his dastardly rival. The chase that kicks off this film feels more like it should be the finale, and after it's over we're suddenly at Harry's portrait studio, where he's photographing the girl and the rival as if nothing happened. It seems that Harry is both a sheriff AND a photographer! (One of those weird hybrid jobs you sometimes find in old comedies.) Before you know it, the villainous Cooper goes mad and sets fire to the studio, and Harry rescues Alberta. In the next sequence, they're getting married . . . and Cooper is a guest at the wedding! Even for a Sennett comedy, this is chaotic. The wedding ceremony is disrupted when a woman afraid of burglars calls for help, and Harry rushes to the rescue, but this sub-plot goes nowhere and feels like a fragment from yet another half-finished film.
In the second reel of Smile Please the business about Harry's career as a sheriff is abruptly dropped, in favor of an extended routine at his portrait studio (now mysteriously restored after the earlier fire), where our hero must photograph his wife's decidedly unsightly family and their uncooperative toddler. The girl and the rival vanish at this point, and we seem to be in a different movie. This second half is quite lively and has some fairly enjoyable moments, if you can forget about that incoherent first reel.
During the scenes at the studio Harry is presented as a conventional comic who scarcely resembles the blank-faced innocent he would become. He is nattily dressed in a striped jacket as he gamely executes gags that might as well have been assigned to Andy Clyde, Billy Bevan, or any other Sennett comic of the day. Some of the material found here was later reworked in a 1933 Our Gang comedy called Wild Poses, which featured Franklin Pangborn in Langdon's role. Meanwhile, Harry would develop his child-man persona and come up with more suitable material in his later two-reel comedies and features. Smile Please is a shaky start to his starring career at Sennett, a patchwork that looks like two or even three unrelated short comedies spliced together to make a very disjointed whole.
In the second reel of Smile Please the business about Harry's career as a sheriff is abruptly dropped, in favor of an extended routine at his portrait studio (now mysteriously restored after the earlier fire), where our hero must photograph his wife's decidedly unsightly family and their uncooperative toddler. The girl and the rival vanish at this point, and we seem to be in a different movie. This second half is quite lively and has some fairly enjoyable moments, if you can forget about that incoherent first reel.
During the scenes at the studio Harry is presented as a conventional comic who scarcely resembles the blank-faced innocent he would become. He is nattily dressed in a striped jacket as he gamely executes gags that might as well have been assigned to Andy Clyde, Billy Bevan, or any other Sennett comic of the day. Some of the material found here was later reworked in a 1933 Our Gang comedy called Wild Poses, which featured Franklin Pangborn in Langdon's role. Meanwhile, Harry would develop his child-man persona and come up with more suitable material in his later two-reel comedies and features. Smile Please is a shaky start to his starring career at Sennett, a patchwork that looks like two or even three unrelated short comedies spliced together to make a very disjointed whole.
helpful•81
- wmorrow59
- Nov 14, 2001
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- Look Pleasant
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- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime10 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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