Customer Reviews

Three's a Crowd (1927) / The Chaser (1928)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

...(with apologies to Reginald Perrin). There has been a lot of interest in Harry Langdon of late. Thanks to last year's HARRY LANGDON: LOST AND FOUND it was possible to finally see the early comedy shorts that brought Langdon to prominence. Now with this Kino International release (one of three new SLAPSTICK SYMPOSIUM offerings) you can see the two films that brought about his downfall.

Much has been written about THREE'S A CROWD over the years almost all of it negative. Seeing it today, there is much to admire but it's easy to see why audiences of 1927 hated it. Existential comedy in the silent era was doomed to failure and while you can admire Langdon for attempting it, you just have to wonder why. The audio commentary by film historian David Kalat makes a good case for the film even if he occasionally is a little overenthusiastic.

The second feature THE CHASER is a return to safer territory as it is basically a reworking of Harry's numerous henpecked husband shorts of the early 1920s. Part of the humor derives from seeing Harry as a ladykiller or "chaser" but it then veers into strange territory by having the partners switch roles as ordered by a judge and Harry's inability to handle the loss of his masculinity. This time around there are lots of gags but it wasn't enough to win his audience back. His final feature film HEART TROUBLE was barely released and is now considered lost.

If you're just starting to familiarize yourself with the work of Harry Langdon then this is definitely not the place to start. Try the LOST AND FOUND set first and then move on to THE STRONG MAN and LONG PANTS before you tackle these. The prints from the Raymond Rohauer collection are excellent for the most part although THREE'S A CROWD has one segment of serious nitrate decomposition. The organ scores by Lee Irwin provide an excellent accompaniment. Thanks to Kino for reviving these late Langdon efforts so that we now have a fairly complete picture of the comedian from start to finish in the silent era.

Don't buy these if they are you first Harry Langdon purchase. These are for people that GET Harry already. I had read so much about Three's a Crowd (I think I read too much) I was expecting this profane, sad masterpiece and I watched it and I didnt get that feeling from it. I had heard that The Chaser was the "more Harry" of the movies and was a more appreciated movie by the audience of the day. So I watched it and you know it's not a great favourite of mine.

So I waited a little and rewatched both movies again and I came away from Threes a Crowd knowing that it is a mastepiece! This is The Little Elf at his best, the innocence and trust, the child, the man all mixed in together. The "nightmare" scene is so amazing.I cannot tell you how much I really love this movie, it goes beyond comedy!

This man was a genius and I really wished that he could have gone on further with his ideas. This is when the film industry gets in the way of making great films. I know it's all about $ but dont you wish that Harry had the money and resources of a Chaplin or Lloyd so that he could have made his movies like he wanted to0! Ah but I wish that so much for Keaton too!

If you're unfamiliar with Harry Langdon's work, this is not the place to start. If you've never cared for Langdon, neither THREE'S A CROWD or THE CHASER will alter your opinion of this quirky, acquired-taste performer. I admire Kino for releasing this limited-interest disc that won't appeal to a wide market. If the overly sentimental THREE'S A CROWD and the darkly humorous THE CHASER are personal statements (both were directed by Langdon), they're statements that will challenge and most likely alienate viewers. Both films reveal a popular silent-era comedian exploring different facets of his established character, deconstructing conventional narrative contexts in the process. The results are as fascinating as they may be (for most viewers) off-putting, and only the most dedicated film scholars and diehard Langdon fans may be willing to take the plunge.

Kino did a fine job of presenting this material, presenting HD masters derived from surviving 35mm negatives. Nitrate decomposition is quite evident during brief passages of THREE'S A CROWD, a reminder that it's fortunate for movie history that this film survived at all. (As noted, these passages are brief and the rest of the picture is in generally excellent shape.) Because of decomposition, portions of THE CHASER were mastered from 16mm source material.

Regardless of how unfunny THREE'S A CROWD may strike most people, even the harshest critics will have to admit that it's a beautifully-made motion picture. (The camerawork is stunning.) This disc is ideally suited for devoted Langdonphiles and serious (very serious) students of silent cinema, who will be able to look at these pictures in their proper context and will appreciate Kino's dedication to their consumer base. However, if you're simply looking for the standard type of silent-comedy fare like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd or the earlier Langdon efforts, you'll be better served elsewhere.

I share with the other reviewers their appreciation of Kino for releasing these films. As poorly as they have been reviewed over the years, it is nice to see a company place an item in the marketplace for the sake of completing the picture.

I have been a Langdon fan for about 30 years. I started out collecting the Blackhawk 8 mm prints, graduated to video where I could find it, bought both of the biographies (though Rheuban's book is barely that, I concede), and have been in heaven over the past several months with the glut of fine, fine Langdon material coming on the market.

Even with this history, I had only seen "Three's A Crowd" and "The Chaser" in the most miserable of VHS dupes. Not only was Langdon's face almost completely without feature, but the background was muddled to the point of being unrecognizable. I had thought both films relatively poor based on what I had seen.

I have changed my mind regarding "Three's A Crowd". I have always liked Langdon because he was different than the other comedians of the era, and so I have never made a direct comparison of his work to the others. In this film, he is quite excellent. David Kalat's commentary, while sometimes bordering on mile-a-minute revisionism, does get it right in that this film is Langdon's apotheosis of stillness and minimalism. I believe that if he had been allowed his initial cut, the film quite likely would have been even MORE extraordinary than it is today. The faults I can find with it are not the ones normally cited about poorly done pathos and matching (no one seems to notice this at the end of City Lights, by the way), but with continuity problems that might have been solved with the addition of the dream sequences at the beginning and some other scenes that we only know of from photographs. Pictorially, it is excellent, and the lack of gags was something I feel Langdon must have done intentionally, so I don't fault him for it. I have the impression that this was a film he had always wanted to make, and what we have is the compromised version of it. Not a masterpiece, but much better than I initially gave it credit for.

As far as "The Chaser".......well.......I love Langdon. I will put up with a good deal just to watch him go through his paces. There is some funny stuff here, but as a whole, the film just confuses me. The Sennett inspired setpiece with the beachballs and swooning women is a complete failure to me because I do not understand it as anything other than an opportunity for some gagging that Harry does not even DO particularly well. Not a total washout, because Langdon is a very interesting comedian to watch in any circumstance, and particularly in a film that was made in the silent era. I just wish he had taken a little more care in it's construction, because it looks very much thrown together. Then again, maybe he felt the frenetic pace and overt gagging was necessary, as has been cited in prior reviews.

I give it four stars. In my mind, a Langdon silent *starts* at three stars just because it exists, and then goes up from that point dependent on the quality. "Three's A Crowd" alone is sufficient to merit this grade, in my opinion.

Approaching Harry Langdon's Three's a Crowd is a loaded task. This film, possibly more than other from silent cinema, comes with an almost legendary amount of vehemently negative appendage. One time collaborator Frank Capra played the self-serving spin doctor in film history's assessment of Langdon and this film. He characterized Langdon's directorial debut as unchecked egotism run amok, resulting in a career destroying, poorly managed misfire and disaster.

That assessment is a grotesque and clueless mockery of film criticism.

The startlingly inept critical consensus, in it's failure to recognize this dark horse, existentialist, Tao masterpiece, reveals far more about reviewers than it does this film. The complete failure of that consensus to rise to Langdon's artistic challenges, to appreciate his risk taking towards a highly individualistic texture of this most compelling purist art of silent cinema, only serves to validate the inherent and prevailing laziness in the art of film criticism.

Capra's statements are frequently suspect. As superb a craftsman as Frank Capra was, he also made amazingly asinine, disparaging remarks regarding European film's penchant for treating the medium as an art form as opposed to populist entertainment. So, likewise, Capra's inability to fully grasp Langdon's desired aesthetic goals and intentions is both understandable and predictable. Samuel Beckett and James Agee are considerably far more trustworthy and reliable in regards to the artistry of Harry Langdon.

Capra credited himself for developing Langdon's character through several shorts, along with the features Strongman and Long Pants. Actually, Langdon had thrived as a vaudeville act for twenty years and had appeared in over a dozen shorts before he and Capra began their brief, ill-fated collaboration.

Aesthetically, Langdon was Capra's antithesis and the surprise is not that the two artists would have a falling out, or that Langdon's stardom would be over almost as soon as it began, but that he ever achieved stardom in the first place. Langdon began edging his character into darker territory in the Capra directed Long Pants, and it was this that lead to their inevitable break.

Three's a Crowd is quintessential Langdon unplugged and it's existence is almost a miracle.

Cubist, minimalist, enigmatic, avant-garde,personal, painterly,static, dream-like, lethargically paced, performance art: all these terms apply to Three's a Crowd.

The set pieces immediately convey the film's genteel, surreal aura. A milkman, making his early delivery at dawn, is the only sign of life in an otherwise empty city street. Inside Harry's apartment, an alarm clock vibrates. The camera seems eerily frozen on the clock, almost as if a still photograph. Harry sits up in bed, half asleep,a long stillness envelops the scene. The street outside is now bustling with activity. Back inside the apartment, Harry still sits in that state between sleeping and waking. The alarm clock continues to vibrate. This establishes the character as one who is apart from the world around him. His face barely registers at all and only the slightest of gestures even indicates Harry is actually alive. An eyebrow is arched, the corner of his mouth oh so slowly curls upward.

Harry's boss, Arthur Thalasso, is outside, yelling, trying to wake his tardy employee. Soon, Thalasso's family is introduced, then poetically contrasted, with Harry's solitary existence and all consuming loneliness.

Harry discovers a beaten up rag doll; a metaphoric symbol for the sense of family which cruelly evades him.

Capra described the development of the Langdon persona as an innocent,who triumphs because he is protected by God. Langdon takes away the divine safety net and took great risk in re-casting his character as a sort of dark-hued, sexually repressed, perennial loser Charlie Brown, alternately attractive to and rejected by women. Despite doing everything right and having the most noble of intentions, this Voltaire-worthy Harry completely fails, and idea is the Divine has a sadistic last laugh at his pathetic creation's futile attempts.

In addition to inanimate objects (the rag doll), Langdon uses nature's animals and references to animals to metaphorically compound the salt rubbed into the wounds of his much put upon character. A pigeon brings an anonymous love letter to Thalasso's wife. Thalasso is convinced it comes from Langdon and a chase ensues. Later, when Langdon discovers a nearly dead half-frozen girl, who he believes to the woman of his dreams, he deduces she is pregnant and ready to deliver. He looks up at her, lying in the safety of his bed, then at the booties in her blanket, then back up at the woman, then at the booties again. His face is still frozen, much as she was frozen, for what seems like the longest moment, as he is methodically taking it all in. Finally, he registers a slight twitch and drops the spoonful of medicine he is about to give her. He flees his apartment, down the long, warped stairway that is shown repeatedly throughout the film. He opens a window and yells inside, "Help, Storks!" An army of women and doctors swarm his apartment, keeping him outside, standing so alone, unsure what to do next.

He has a toy rifle, a drum set, various toys, all for this miracle gift of a holy child, but stands there for half an eternity in complete confusion and bewilderment.

Like Saul consulting the soothsayer, Harry consults a palm reader, to assure him this is all going to turn out all right, that the woman's husband will not return to claim the wife and child who are, for the moment, Harry's dream of a family finally personified.

However, like Saul, Harry is at the mercy of God's humor and, indeed, the husband does indeed return to claim what is his. A surreal dream, a boxing match between Langdon and the husband refereed by Thalasso is only witnessed by the prized woman and child, encased in an opaque, blackened world. Harry wears an over-sized boxing glove, looks at this dream family with the slightest of smiles, points to his glove, then to the husband, slow blinks as the husband strikes a highly theatrical battle pose and...

...Naturally, Harry loses and his dream family is taken away. When the woman of his dreams embraces her husband, Harry looks ups at them, in complete silence, looks at his palm, reminded of the oh so cruel, oh so wrong prediction, then back at this real family, utterly helpless.

Harry returns to the palm reading shop. He raises the brick in his hand to smash the windows, thinks better of it, raises his hand again, decides not to after all and discards the brick, only to see it fly into a wine barrel, which goes crashing into the shop window. Harry retreats up the long winding stairway to disappear into the safety of his lonely home, his dreams as smashed as that window.

The bleakness of Three's a Crowd is worthy of Beckett, rivals the best of Chaplin, and stands apart as THE unjustly maligned, hopelessly misunderstood, dark horse masterpiece of silent cinema. Fans of silent comedy have often expressed disappointment in this film, citing that it is simply not funny. Similarly, Tom Hanks fans initially resisted his venturing past the expected comedies. Three's a Crowd defies genre. It is not a comedy, but the purest expression of Langdon's standout art,which refuses to be pigeonholed. Langdon got his start in film at a much later age than his contemporaries and he always seemed the antithesis of Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd; so his evolution into something even starker, less definable, was the most predictable outcome of Langdon's career, and then only in retrospect. It is unfortunate that Langdon was not permitted to develop his art and character, but it's almost a miracle he was allowed to in the first place and this resulting film is his testament. Many of his earlier films for Mack Sennett, while uniquely different, still seem very much expressions of their time, as do the Capra films, but Three's a Crowd went further and, consequently, stands out and alone as an original, modernist misfit work. Its, and Langdon's, time has come.

* My review was originally published at 366 Weird Movies

Having read some reviews and other materials on Langdon, I prepared myself to be disappointed by Three's a Crowd. And, true, the opening sequences, in which the camera seemed stuck on the sleepy Langdon, holding the shots way too long, seemed to portend an excruciatingly boring experience. But, boy, was I wrong! I absolutely love this film! Okay, maybe one can't quite call it a comedy, though there are many funny "moments" (as opposed to sequences or set pieces, though there are a couple of those as well), but there is an amazing sense of telling detail. While I agree that there are some plot points that go nowhere (the pigeon literally coming out of the blue), I disagree with the general view that Langdon didn't understand his own screen persona. Harry Langdon was a wonderfully subtle actor; there is not a false gesture or expression in the entire film.
The photography too is breath-taking; the sets of that little dead-end community are indelibly designed. I immediately watched the film again, this time with the very enthusiastic commentary by David Kalat, and appreciated it even more. I guess I do see why it wasn't successful at the time of its release -- it does move very slowly, does not build to a rousing slapstick climax, and the ending will break your heart. But it's a one of a kind film that was made with great care and love. If Andy Kaufman had teamed up with Guy Maddin, you might have something like Three's a Crowd.

Ideas like "Langdon never really understood the character he played on screen" are unoriginal canards, and after watching many Langdon films, I do not see the evidence for this odd theory, nor many of the criticisms about his later silent films--or even his sound films. I think this film, and its other black-sheep sibling "The Chaser" have more going for them than writers generally credit them for.

With silent films, any new understandings of a work usually come from the quality and completeness of the print, and the perceptiveness of the soundtrack. These Kino prints are very good and very complete (read other reviews for details). In fact, too complete: these movies really need re-editing. The music works to a degree...

THREE'S A CROWD:
Kino must take pride in giving us silent movies with out-of-sync sound tracks. (For example, the Robert Israel music for Kino's 2-DVD box set of "The General" goes so far as 2 seconds late in the middle of the film.) At the beginning of "Three's A Crowd", you can actually hear the organist trilling the sound of Harry's alarm clock--15 seconds before we see the clock. The alarm-clock music occurs at 1:45 in the film, but you don't see the close-up of the clock ringing until 2:00, well AFTER the sound has COMPLETELY STOPPED!! In scene II, things are a little better: the soundtrack seems to be only 5 seconds early, instead of 15. After that, it appears to be in-sync, although Erwin's music rarely fits the action at all, either because he is overly subtle or the music is actually still out of sync--I guess I'll never know. I will admit that the sound of the organ is very suitable to this film, and overall the music--as background music--strikes me as generally appropriate to the mood of the movie. It is minimal music to a minimalist film. And it may have been what Langdon was after.

Watched as a character study, not a farce, I found "Three's..." to be curious, absorbing, and then haunting. With a truly insightful soundtrack and a little editing to fix the botched matching shots, it would be a very effective movie.

I have never found Langdon to be a belly-laugh comedian, just mesmerizing to watch. Maybe that's why I was not disappointed, as opposed to those who claim that the film lacks jokes and is "not funny". Like some of the "weaker" Laurel and Hardy movies from the Hal Roach era, the less a script gave them to do, the more they relied on their character acting, which was what made them special. In this movie, it's almost all about character, and since I can't stop watching Langdon once he gets going, I was content.

The cinematography is excellent, the choice of shots is sensitive, and the editing (in terms of which shots are chosen and in what order) is often elegant, if occasionally sloppy (there are numerous shots where the actors finish an action, then repeat it in the next shot, because the two shots were not cut to match properly).

The entire section with the terrible nitrate damage does not even include any recognizable actors, so the whole sequence could be easily re-filmed, in 16mm, and in that way restored. I hope someday someone does this, perhaps with a few added shots drawn from Langdon's original storyboard, and maybe the film will then reveal even more about itself. In the meantime, I suggest skipping the doll section, if your computerized DVD player allows.

Watch it when you are not in a mental hurry, approach it with no expectations, sit back and relax.

THE CHASER
There are moments in this film that actually made me laugh out loud, which is unusual for me while watching a Langdon film. If the organist were Robert Vaughn, or even Robert Israel, this movie might come alive. Lee Erwin's dour and uninspired organ work practically kills the movie and makes it a little difficult to assess what exactly we do have here.

I'm giving this DVD a rating of 2 stars out of a complicated formulae: I'm inclined to give 4 stars to "Three's A Crowd", as a movie; I give 3 stars to the organwork for "Three", but a NEGATIVE-1 star to Kino for bad sync; 1-1/2 stars for the organwork for "Chaser"; 5 stars for Kino for putting out this DVD in the first place; and I at this time have no idea how to rate "Chaser" as a movie. EVEN at a 2-star rating, I HIGHLY recommend BUYING THIS, if you are at all a silent-film history buff or a Langdon fan.

So, if you already know Langdon's other silent work and are interested in these two movies, by all means do go ahead and buy this. But let's hope someday someone restores "Three" and sets both films to better soundtracks. MUCH better soundtracks... Or at least re-syncs the ones they have now.

UPDATE: December 2010
I tried viewing The Chaser by watching only certain sections, and not others, and I find it much more coherent, and highly entertaining. If you can do it (perhaps with your computer): stop watching at the point the wife buries her head in her hands, sobbing, and go from there past the entire section of morning headlines "Man Commits Suicide" and the stuff with the judge. Start up again where the Wife and the Mother-In-Law go for a drive to look for Harry. Once again, stop watching after Harry and Bud, on the golf course, run in a panic from the "grave site", and go directly to Harry putting back on his dress in the car. NOW the movie makes a lot of sense, and it's not so long, dragged down by the meaningless scene with the bathing beauties. If you could also find a way to skip the repetitive and unnecessary shots at the beginning of the film (of the two women yelling into the telephone), and skip similarly repetitive shots later in the movie, the film would move along much more briskly and becomes, in my lowly opinion, one of his better works! (Langdon edits his films much the same as his film personae reacts to the world around him: with many hesitations and repetitions. Interesting for his character, deadly for an editing technique.)

Having seen "Three's a Crowd" (1927) and "The Chaser" (1928) in horrendous prints, I have to applaud Kino for releasing these. Though I'm sure the market is not crying for the two films that derailed silent clown Langdon's career, lovers of silent comedies are definitely going to want to jump on this release.
"Three's a Crowd" was Langdon's earnest attempt to emulate Chaplin's filmmaking style. It features Langdon as a typical down-on-his-luck blue collar worker (moving pianos, if I remember correctly) who takes in a young woman who is pregnant and is angry at her husband. While she stays with him, Langdon is doing everything possible to make her fall in love with him and spends his time daydreaming of a life with this girl. While the film is not a complete disaster, it is just not overly funny. Many people feel this film marked the end of Langdon's career, which is not true.
"The Chaser" is his next film, and is an enjoyable domestic comedy in which Langdon angers his wife who files divorce papers. The judge, apparently quite a progressive guy, decides what Langdon needs is to live for awhile in his wife's shoes. Langdon gets to do a lot of good comedy in this one and this film is a complete shift in tone from "Three's a Crowd." Much of the film is tried-and-true remakes of short films he did early in his career. "The Chaser" is a good entry into Langdon's canon.

Harry Langdon's self directed "3's a Crowd" (1927) is very good, although many disagree.

This is the interesting tale of Harry as a poor slum dwelling socially backward furniture mover who longs to have a family like his employer. He meets a pregnant lady in a snowstorm who is temporarily on the outs with her husband and takes her in before he gives birth. I'll stop here and let you figure out the rest.

This film is hated by many critics because of the heavy sentiment. I personally enjoyed it. Some really clever gags such as Harry tossing the doll in time with his employer playfully tossing his on in the air. The final (and unexpected) gag is also a good capper for the film. On the whole, the film is more interesting than funny. The gags bring occasional smiles as opposed to belly laughs. But I think it's still worth watching. Most people who are familiar with Jackie Gleason's masterpiece GIGOT (1962) say that it was inspired by Chaplin's THE KID. I disagree. I think that the similarities to THREE'S A CROWD are more apparent (poor socially scorned men who find ready made families with a would-be wife and child). Since John Herbert Gleason was born in 1916, it is likely that he would have seen this 1927 film as a child.

Then there is THE CHASER (1928). Pee-ooey! Harry must have gone to a farm to feed laxatives to the cows and filmed the results! What JUNK! This misfire mess nearly killed Harry's career!

This is where a more middle-class Harry is a rambling husband with a shrewish wife and nagging hawk-faced mother in law. They go to divorce court, but the judge (foreshadowing Tv judge "Exterme Akim" Anastopoulo 80 years later) orders Harry to wear a skirt and act like the wife for a month or go to jail! What the HECK?!

The gross indignities (salesmen, icemen, and milkmen making passes at Harry and his wife going so far as to bring her friends over to laugh at Harry's humiliation) lead Harry to attempt suicide (unsuccessfully of course). The story then takes a strange detour of Harry ditching the feminine attire to play golf and party with some beauties at the park. What was our man (and writer Arthur Ripley) thinking? Beleive it or not, they thought the public would go for this demolition derby of weirdness and bad taste.

This is all every bit as strange, senseless, and unfunny as it sounds. Far beneath the talents of an otherwise great comedian. 1928 critics and audiences were repelled by this garbage and you are likely to be also. Bad drama sometimes makes for good comedy, but bad comedy is good for nothing.

So see Three's a Crowd to see whether you agree on the merits of this film, and spend an hour of your life that you'll never get back with the abomination THE CHASER to see Harry as you've never seen him (and hope to never see again).

As a Langdon enthusiast for over 30 years I loved the Lost Langdon films DVD. But seeing THE CHASER & THREE'S A CROWD, it was embarassing. David Kalt's commentary sounds like some film nerd with such over the top comparisons with Picasso paintings,existentialism, etc. You have to love Langdon to relate to these 2. They are not bad, but far from his best. Very self absorbed in his directing & acting;so out of touch with how to relate to the audience at this point. That's what makes this frustrating to watch, but his later sound shorts were not bad, as in the Lost Films DVD.