If (as I just pointed out in THE GOAT) Keaton is following the tradition of the comics finding themselves at odds with the law, this Langdon short (the last released before he did TRAMP, TRAMP, TRAMP) was based on another comic ploy - being married to a shrewish spouse, and trying to get away for some secret two-timing dating. Laurel & Hardy did this in several films, as did Fields, and Chaplin.
I have a problem with it - why do these characters always marry such nasty women? And there is an interesting sociological side issue - why don't you find female comics married to male counterparts to these shrews? I can't recall any, except in a Carol Burnett skit, where the two nastier members of two couples discover that they prefer having someone give it back as good as they get (a kind of mutual sado-masochism, but also reassurance that their not married to a namby-pamby type). As for the fact that the comics do marry shrews, I suppose one can imagine they get what they deserve. Or do they? Ollie really deserves a wife who throws pots and dishes at him? Yeah he went to that convention in SONS OF THE DESERT that ruined her plans, but he wanted to get some private time - there is nothing suggesting he and Stan cheated on their wives. Actually he is creamed by Mae Busch because he lied to her while Stan collapsed and told the truth to his wife.
Here Harry's wife (Alice Ward) is shown at the start talking to her mother about how she keeps him under strict control. We see Harry at his job (it is Saturday morning, and the job ends at noon for the rest of the weekend - this was before the idea of a five - day a week, 40 hour a week job in industry). He works in a foundry where he hits red hot metal into shape (an early joke about Langdon - he is a small, light man, not the muscular type to swing a sledge hammer). He just misses his streetcar trying to give a man a light. He calls home to explain things and gets an earful from the missus for being two minutes late.
On the way home Harry meets his pal Steve (Vernon Dent) who has met two nice, sweet girls who would just love to have a date. Harry is hesitant but agrees to it after talking to the girl (he agrees to pay for the hot-dogs for the foursome - he has a 1926 silver half dollar in his pocket). But his plans seem derailed when his wife discovers his hidden "cache" of coins. He keeps it hidden under the living room rug, and finds it by walking along the edge of the rug. But his wife spies on him, and confiscates all of it. Later she overhears him talking to himself and berating her. In contempt she gives him back a dime and says he can treat his date to a soda.
But Harry has a second cache of coins, and dresses up for the date - and goes out. He and Dent are apparently late, and Dent blames Harry, but Harry tries to make it up to him: he produces two prostitutes. They get into a quarrel when Dent (wisely) says they are not the type of girls he'd term as "nice". Eventually the girls do show up and the date begins. But soon Harry is hiding in the rumble seat, as his wife drives past in her roadster, and the girls boy friends turn up - angry at their two rivals.
The short works well and is amusing, and gives one a better idea of the persona that Harry Langdon developed in his brief stardom as a comic master. He is constantly put upon by others. He misses his streetcar because some stranger keeps asking for a smoke and a light, and in the end the stranger gets his own. The nice girl who is Harry's date has a little dog who chases him away. He rests between two cars that both start driving away and he ends up wrapped around a pole. It certainly demonstrates that Langdon had his screen persona down pat by the time that he made his features. If only he could have kept the complex whole together beyond those three first features.
I have a problem with it - why do these characters always marry such nasty women? And there is an interesting sociological side issue - why don't you find female comics married to male counterparts to these shrews? I can't recall any, except in a Carol Burnett skit, where the two nastier members of two couples discover that they prefer having someone give it back as good as they get (a kind of mutual sado-masochism, but also reassurance that their not married to a namby-pamby type). As for the fact that the comics do marry shrews, I suppose one can imagine they get what they deserve. Or do they? Ollie really deserves a wife who throws pots and dishes at him? Yeah he went to that convention in SONS OF THE DESERT that ruined her plans, but he wanted to get some private time - there is nothing suggesting he and Stan cheated on their wives. Actually he is creamed by Mae Busch because he lied to her while Stan collapsed and told the truth to his wife.
Here Harry's wife (Alice Ward) is shown at the start talking to her mother about how she keeps him under strict control. We see Harry at his job (it is Saturday morning, and the job ends at noon for the rest of the weekend - this was before the idea of a five - day a week, 40 hour a week job in industry). He works in a foundry where he hits red hot metal into shape (an early joke about Langdon - he is a small, light man, not the muscular type to swing a sledge hammer). He just misses his streetcar trying to give a man a light. He calls home to explain things and gets an earful from the missus for being two minutes late.
On the way home Harry meets his pal Steve (Vernon Dent) who has met two nice, sweet girls who would just love to have a date. Harry is hesitant but agrees to it after talking to the girl (he agrees to pay for the hot-dogs for the foursome - he has a 1926 silver half dollar in his pocket). But his plans seem derailed when his wife discovers his hidden "cache" of coins. He keeps it hidden under the living room rug, and finds it by walking along the edge of the rug. But his wife spies on him, and confiscates all of it. Later she overhears him talking to himself and berating her. In contempt she gives him back a dime and says he can treat his date to a soda.
But Harry has a second cache of coins, and dresses up for the date - and goes out. He and Dent are apparently late, and Dent blames Harry, but Harry tries to make it up to him: he produces two prostitutes. They get into a quarrel when Dent (wisely) says they are not the type of girls he'd term as "nice". Eventually the girls do show up and the date begins. But soon Harry is hiding in the rumble seat, as his wife drives past in her roadster, and the girls boy friends turn up - angry at their two rivals.
The short works well and is amusing, and gives one a better idea of the persona that Harry Langdon developed in his brief stardom as a comic master. He is constantly put upon by others. He misses his streetcar because some stranger keeps asking for a smoke and a light, and in the end the stranger gets his own. The nice girl who is Harry's date has a little dog who chases him away. He rests between two cars that both start driving away and he ends up wrapped around a pole. It certainly demonstrates that Langdon had his screen persona down pat by the time that he made his features. If only he could have kept the complex whole together beyond those three first features.