Film #15 - The Head Guy (1930)

 

   

Starring Harry Langdon.

 

Featuring Nancy Dover, Thelma Todd, Eddie Dunn, and Edgar Kennedy.

 

Directed by Fred L. Guiol.

 

Synopsis

"Hooray! Hooray! Hooray, for Goodness' Sakes!"

 

         



"The Head Guy" begins on a cold, rainy night at Elmira train station. Nancy (Nancy Dover) informs station master Kennedy (Edgar Kennedy) that his wife has given birth to twins.

Nancy instructs him to go home right away, but Kennedy is reluctant to leave the station unmanned. Nancy reminds him that Harry is around to look after the station.

Expressing some reluctance, Kennedy finally agrees to hand over control of the station to Harry for the evening.

Harry (Harry Langdon) enters from outside and is overjoyed to hear that Mrs Kennedy has had twins. Mr Kennedy gives him several important instructions concerning the safe running of the trains, which he promptly muddles and forgets...

Nancy is thrilled that Harry will be in charge of the station, and after a discreet peck on his cheek, she leaves a grinning Harry to get on with his duties.

A train pulls into Elmira with an alighting show troupe. Harry, eager to help, gets clouted by the luggage that is thrown off the train.

The show troupe head for the waiting room to get dry, whilst Harry struggles with a colossal amount of luggage. Attempting to store it all, he knocks a case of ducks off the luggage cart. One escapes, despite Harry's attempts to coax it back by mimicking its quacking.

The head guy of the show troupe (Eddie Dunn), requests that the girls rehearse in the waiting room for the four hours that they will be stuck at Elmira.

Harry spends some time crawling around on the floor attempting to catch the stray duck, to no avail.

Whilst Harry is duck hunting, Mr Dunn and his troupe of girls begin rehearsing a dance number.

Harry's quacking rouses the ire of Mr Dunn, who thinks that someone in the room is giving him the horse laugh!

As Mr Dunn prances around the waiting room floor, he trips over Harry, who is crawling around on his hands and knees still trying to find the duck.

Mr Dunn does not appreciate Harry's quacking, and shoves him out of the waiting room.

In another part of the station, the star of the troupe (Thelma Todd) is drying her dog. She asks Harry to take her dog outside for a minute...

With the dog's business having been attended to, Harry reunites the pooch with his owner.

Harry goes back to watch the show troupe rehearse, and in-avertedly gets thrust into the rehearsal with the girls!

His frenetic tap-dancing goes down well with the girls, but not with Nancy, who enters, hurt that he is larking about instead of working hard.

Harry tries to console a crying Nancy, but she walks out on him, wanting never to speak to him again.

Harry sits in the office, crying.

He resolves that without Nancy, life is not worth living, and that he would rather die.

After a few moments booing, Harry then changes his mind that it is silly to think of death because Nancy's left him.

He then decides to find another girlfriend, perhaps one who smokes (!), before the crushing reality hits him that Nancy is the only girl for him.

He cries again whilst eating his lunch, deciding that there is nothing for him to live for.

In the meantime, in a change of heart, Nancy has been dancing along on her own, somewhat in awe of the show troupe. Mr Dunn observes that she is a good dancer and invites her to go and dance with the rest of the girls.

Harry wanders out of his office, just as Nancy has taken off her skirt (!) to dance more freely with the girls. Harry tries to remonstrate with her, but she ignores him and aims her kicks at his face!

Mr Dunn invites Nancy to join the show troupe, and she agrees.

Harry decides to play the strong man, and socks Mr Dunn on the nose for trying to take away his girl. Unfortunately, Mr Dunn lamps him back twice as hard.

Harry decides to take drastic action, and attempts to pull his gun on Mr Dunn. However, the gun keeps getting stuck in his holster. When he does eventually manage to get the gun out, there are no bullets in it.

Just at that moment, the connecting train pulls in and the show troupe rush out to board it.

Harry tries to stop Nancy from joining them, but she ignores him and boards the train with the others, pausing briefly for a final wave goodbye.

The train pulls away, much to Harry's displeasure, only to reveal that Nancy is standing the other side of the tracks!

The lovers are reunited, and with the rain having stopped, Harry forecasts that things will look bright for both of them. As he does, he accidentally pulls the water pump lever and the couple are drenched.

 

Review

"If Nancy don't want me, then I want to die"


 

 

    

Oh, no. Oh, no. Not again! I feel as if I could easily spend another blog post writing about "if only..."

If only Langdon hadn't left Roach (or, if only Langdon hadn't been fired by Roach, depending on what side of the argument you sit...).

If only the two missing Langdon/Roach talkies, "Hotter than Hot" and "Sky Boy" could be miraculously found.

I could go on. But I won't.

What I will say is that it is really frustrating, such is the power of hindsight, to think that had Langdon not left the Roach studios - (yep, I'm of the opinion that he walked away from his contract because of the lure of more money to make A Soldier's Plaything) - then Langdon could be held in the same regard as Laurel and Hardy today, had he continued to churn out eight shorts plus feature films every year for the five years that his Roach contract was due to last...

Well, well, well, well, well, well!

I feel as if I have a lot to say about Langdon. I'm not sure whether a lot of it is accurate or relevant, or even worth writing. But I guess that's the beauty/frustration of a blog post: It's not a polished, refined piece of scholarly research, but my randomised thoughts jotted down and only very loosely structured and organised. Above all it captures my initial thoughts as they come to me about black and white cinema that I enjoy watching.

So here it goes: Mr Harry Langdon, take a (slow) bow and tip your derby for your first appearance on Magnolia's Musings.

I really like the six surviving shorts that Langdon did for Hal Roach in late 1929 and early 1930. Am I in a minority? I don't know. Do you like the Langdon/Roach shorts? 

I like them because Langdon - a lot like Laurel and Hardy - was someone who was perfectly suited to silent films, but possessed a character that transferred naturally into talkies.

That claim is a lot easier substantiated when you think of Laurel and Hardy, but, if you think of Langdon in The Strong Man or Tramp, Tramp, Tramp for example, the lost innocent, completely unable to survive in or understand the harsh world of man, his character's slowness and lack of pace in keeping up with the modern rush of life was an excellent trait for the fast-moving world of the talkies in Hollywood.

Even though Langdon's character in the Roach shorts is not too drastically different from his character in his feature films from the late 20s, I feel that with the addition of language, the effect of Langdon's man-child is heightened.

Each of the six Roach shorts presents a slightly different variation of Langdon's slow man-child reacting to a variety of complex, adult situations, which naturally develop those themes Langdon had previously developed in Long Pants and Threes a Crowd, for example. It would have been fascinating had Langdon made a feature length film for Roach, purely to see which direction the character would have taken: straight-up slapstick, or something darker in the comedy?

We get both of these strands in The Head Guy, which further provides evidence as to why those playwrights who fell under the banner of the theatre of the absurd adored Langdon. The Head Guy certainly contains many a classic Roach-esque moment of absurd, silly slapstick - think of Langdon chasing a duck around the station waiting room or Langdon snapping Eddie Dunn on the nose - but it also contains some dark moments that could make the viewer feel uneasy.

Think of the Hamlet-esque "to-be-or-not-to-be"-like crying monologue, with Langdon turning from thoughts of suicide to love to suicide, all this whilst almost choking on a sandwich that he's eating. It's certainly absurd, in a Brecht sense of the word, but it's also Shakespearean; I've seen actors playing Hamlet in the past cry during the "to be or not to be" speech. But what do you think of the moments when Langdon is crying, contemplating killing himself?

Certainly, Laurel and Hardy have similar moments of thinking about suicide - albeit, the one that comes to mind, with Ollie going to tie a rock around his middle and jump in the lake in The Flying Deuces, also had Langdon's input on the script - but comedy is always at the forefront. We know there is a shark in the water, and we laugh that poor Stan has been pulled into the suicide bid.

There's not really anything that comedic about Langdon telling us he's going to kill himself whilst eating his sandwich. We are just drawn to his despair, which, even though is revealed to us in Langdon's twisted facial expressions, doesn't really make us laugh comfortably. It's the laughter of unease ala Pinter. I remember the first time I watched The Head Guy, I actually thought: he's going to start choking in a minute. In an unfunny way. How weird for a Roach film!

Perhaps I'm being too absurdist about Langdon's The Head Guy. Perhaps the audience at the time laughed at Langdon's absurdist suicidal ramblings. After all, claiming that "I'll die, I know I'll die" could be funny, but it's also something unsettling as well. We all have to die. Perhaps the comedic factor is revealed through Langdon's musings that he'll get a "bigger girl" and one who "smokes", but even if we do laugh at that, it's only momentary, because Langdon realises that Nancy is the only girl for him and he's thinking about death once again.

Phew!

I don't know. Do you know what I mean? These Langdon films are quite untypical of Roach, agreed?

Let's draw things back to Langdon's character.

I love the Roach shorts because Langdon's character works brilliantly in the early talkies. I simply enjoy The Head Guy for reasons that I don't really understand. Langdon is a terrific actor; he retains that wonderful ability for you to read his thoughts and innermost feelings just be looking at his facial expressions that is so crucial in silent cinema, and this makes him sidesplittingly funny. But add to that a voice that beautifully complements the confused man-child persona that Langdon championed, and you have the recipe for good comedy.

For example, it's hilarious watching Harry attempt to remember all of the important information that Kennedy gives him about how to look after the station correctly. Nancy watches him, in complete confidence that he'll do a good job, and her look of love really puts you on Harry's side. You want him to do well for Nancy!

Harry's also good at the physical comedy as well, whether it's getting jerked up from the ground by Eddie Dunn or almost receiving a kick to the face from Nancy.

I also like Nancy Dover in the Langdon shorts; I wonder why she wasn't in more Roach shorts in general at the time? Eagle-eyed viewers may know her better as Judith Barrett, the name that she was to go by for much of her later career in cinema in the late 30s and 40s. She's quirky and she plays the perfect kind of girl for Langdon's character - frustrated by him but also devoted to him. No doubt she wouldn't mind kicking him in the head occasionally, but she's also happy to be like Mrs Kennedy as well, as Harry asks her to be.

It's hard to put into words, but I feel that Nancy Dover isn't as 'wooden' as some of the other actors in the Hal Roach family at the time when the talkies started. Some of the early talkies from the Roach lot are not great, to be honest - Hurdy Gurdy anyone? - but Miss Dover has a pleasant voice and vitality that complements Langdon's character. It's probably no surprise that she's in a decent number of the Roach/Langdon shorts, frequently playing the damsel in distress that Harry falls in love with.

And she's not afraid to kick-up high in her bloomers when required! Joking aside, two things; she reminds me a bit of Marion Byron, and also, the moment right at the end of The Head Guy where Harry holds her in his arms is really beautiful. Her portrayal of unwavering love for Harry as they hold each other close outside as the rain stops is really rather charming. It's heightened by the fact that innocent Harry wants her to be like Mrs Kennedy. See, none of the Hamlet style tragedy here at the end! It's also rather poetic that Langdon did get to make future shorts with Nancy Dover in the mid-30s, although sadly, they haven't survived. That is a tragedy.

There are several other moments in this short that I particularly like. Most of them involve Langdon (no surprise there). He's one of those actors where I only have to look at him and I find whatever he's doing funny. Whether it's pushing his nose up against the window at the start of the film, or standing outside in the rain, he's just incredibly funny. For me, Langdon is the only comedian to rival Laurel and Hardy in making an everyday little action (such as ringing a doorbell or eating a sandwich) incredibly funny.

The bits with Langdon searching for the lost duck are lots of fun. Especially when you first find out that its Langdon making the quacking noise and not the duck. This, of course, leads to lots of added comedy with an on-form Eddie Dunn who takes offence at Langdon's "horse laughing".

I find the bit with Thelma Todd and her dog really weird...

I wrote earlier about Langdon being admired by those dramatists writing in the 50s who appreciated his comedy as contributing towards their idea of the absurd. Well, this moment where Langdon has to take Thelma Todd's dog outside so that it can do its business is one really bizarre moment. Why is this in the short? A bit of filler? An inside joke from one of the script writers or someone in the production team? Langdon's idea? Langdon's double take as he looks down to where the dog has been when he's standing outside in the rain is strange, as is his slow nod towards Miss Todd when he returns inside. It's all a bit peculiar. And Thelma Todd doesn't appear again in the rest of the short (although she does, of course, play larger roles in other films in the Roach/Langdon series)!

The thought of Langdon losing Nancy to the show troupe is genuinely sad; as Harry's worried expression tells us, but we're soon laughing again as he tries to take revenge on Eddie Dunn. And all's well that ends well, as the viewer can see a long time before Harry that Nancy has got off the train and is standing waiting for him on the other side of the tracks. The final moments of the film are also funny; I wasn't expecting the water to pour down over the happy couple!

Overall, I really like The Head Guy. It has a fairly simple premise and the plot plays out pretty nicely, if slowly, but it's a nice vehicle to showcase Langdon in the early days of talkies.

What do you think about The Head Guy? Are you a fan of Langdon's Roach talkies? I for one hope that a copy of Sky Boy and Hotter than Hot materialise in the near future.
 

Watch it

"Don't you give me the horse-laugh again!"

 

 

 

 
"The Head Guy" is unavailable on DVD at present. "Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo". I really hope that someone does decide to release them on Blu-ray one day in the future. In fact, just a DVD release would be nice. Please?