I personally like Langdon's 'Long Pants' and feel that it is the best of the three films presented on Kino's 'The Forgotten Clown' disc. Contrary to some writers on the subject, I am inclined to believe that 'The Strong Man' is really the weak film. 'The Strong Man' begins poorly with an overlong scene of Langdon doing nearly nothing. 'Tramp Tramp Tramp' is a silly film with little substance, but it offers clean light-hearted entertainment. The relationship between Joan Crawford and Langdon should have been strengthened to bring out dramatic tension, and to make it connect with the final cyclone scene. 'Long Pants' is in several ways, a unique film. A boy caught up in his imagination gets his first pair of long pants. A rapid transformation occurs that delivers him from boyhood innocence into the actual world of his fantasies. With these new pants, he can't quite control himself, and soon thereafter, he meets up with a mysterious woman of questionable character who introduces the boy-man to the seedier parts of life. Langdon already has a finance, but she lacks the erotic nature the other possesses. But the pants do nothing more than to provide an allusion of manhood. As he allows himself to be seduced by the vixen flapper, his thoughts turn to doing away with his bride-to-be in a funny, yet slightly disturbing scene in the forest. But it's all in jest.
Review of Long Pants
