Long Pants

Synopsis

Harry, a sheltered small-town dreamer raised on romantic novels, finally receives his first pair of long trousers and with them the right to court. Instead of the sweet neighbour his parents have chosen for him, he loses his head over a glamorous stranger whose car has broken down in the village, unaware that she is a criminal on the run. On his wedding day he attempts a disastrous escape into her world, and learns what adulthood costs.

Critique

The last and darkest of the three features Capra made with Harry Langdon, Long Pants pushes the comedian's man-child persona into genuinely unsettling territory. The sequence in which Harry, wholly infatuated, tries and fails to dispose of his fiancée in the woods is played as slapstick, yet its undertone of innocence curdling into cruelty is unlike anything else in silent comedy. Capra's control of tempo and Langdon's eerie stillness produce a film that is both very funny and quietly disturbing.

Technical sheet

Director

Frank Capra

Year

1927

Country

United States

Running time

60 min

Genre

Comedy

Written by

Tay Garnett, Arthur Ripley, Robert Eddy

Cinematography

Glenn Kershner, Elgin Lessley

Cast

Harry Langdon, Gladys Brockwell, Alan Roscoe, Priscilla Bonner, Alma Bennett, Betty Francisco

Production

Harry Langdon Corporation

Music

Newly composed original score

Licensing