Harry Langdon's third self-produced feature film proceeds from a plan that is very strange, sweet, and often quite dark -- and arguably more of all three than his previous two. It's also equally funny. As in the other two First National-distributed features, "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp" and "The Strong Man," Harry Langdon is motivated by a Quixotic question for an absurdly impossible to attain woman. Harry is an apparently full-grown man who has just been given his first pair of the titular long pants by his parents (in strange opening that gives Harry a just enough confidence finally to speak to a woman), and goes about fulfilling his hopeless-romantic fantasies (and evidently some decadent ones too, hinted at in an amusing risqué gag where he thinks a crocodile biting his posterior is his playful new girlfriend) by falling in love with a bad-girl frequent-felon instead of the requisite sweet local girl.
There are a number of more macabre sequences of comedy here -- attributed by many to the greater influence of story-writer Arthur Ripley, now being favored by Langdon over director Frank Capra -- and they work perfectly as a compliment and contrast to Harry's eternally innocent, naive, childlike, and confused character. He just doesn't know that the way to get out of marrying a girl is not simply to shoot her in the woods, and a long scene where he tries to do just that, fumbling with great comic flair, becomes hilarious. And the topper in which he is innocent to stop because a "no shooting" sign told him to becomes brilliant comic juxtaposition.
Langdon's comic skills and timing are on as great a display as ever here. The centerpiece of the film is a very long and progressively more uproarious tour de force of a pantomime solo scene in which Harry, convinced that a discarded mannequin of a policeman is real, tries every measure available to him (including pretending to be held up at the store front of a very annoyed and confused owner) to get his attention and induce him to go away. It's been said that Langdon could extend a gag and keep it funny longer than any other comedian, and this is proof if ever there was of the truth of that.
Alma Bennett is a very magnetic and sultry presence here, and a wonderful contrast with Harry's blank naiveté. Frank Capra's direction captures the comedy timing extremely well, and injects the right note of sweetness into Harry's mishandled love triangle.
While "Long Pants" is a very odd duck of a comedy, it's a very funny one, and shows of Harry Langdon's unique skill as a comedian and comic sensibility as the complete innocent unaware of mores or morals surrounded by a confusing world.
There are a number of more macabre sequences of comedy here -- attributed by many to the greater influence of story-writer Arthur Ripley, now being favored by Langdon over director Frank Capra -- and they work perfectly as a compliment and contrast to Harry's eternally innocent, naive, childlike, and confused character. He just doesn't know that the way to get out of marrying a girl is not simply to shoot her in the woods, and a long scene where he tries to do just that, fumbling with great comic flair, becomes hilarious. And the topper in which he is innocent to stop because a "no shooting" sign told him to becomes brilliant comic juxtaposition.
Langdon's comic skills and timing are on as great a display as ever here. The centerpiece of the film is a very long and progressively more uproarious tour de force of a pantomime solo scene in which Harry, convinced that a discarded mannequin of a policeman is real, tries every measure available to him (including pretending to be held up at the store front of a very annoyed and confused owner) to get his attention and induce him to go away. It's been said that Langdon could extend a gag and keep it funny longer than any other comedian, and this is proof if ever there was of the truth of that.
Alma Bennett is a very magnetic and sultry presence here, and a wonderful contrast with Harry's blank naiveté. Frank Capra's direction captures the comedy timing extremely well, and injects the right note of sweetness into Harry's mishandled love triangle.
While "Long Pants" is a very odd duck of a comedy, it's a very funny one, and shows of Harry Langdon's unique skill as a comedian and comic sensibility as the complete innocent unaware of mores or morals surrounded by a confusing world.