LONG PANTS
Starring Harry Langdon and Priscilla Bonner
PHOTOPLAY
June 1927

In the spring a young man's fancy turns to Long Pants - and when Harry Langdon gets his first pair of long pants, he's sitting on top of ht world. So much so that he casts aside the little country gal and falls madly in love with the vamp, who is incidentally a bandit. Harry soon realizes his mistake and returns home. Not much of a story for six long reels, but Langdon is always funny and so who cares a great deal about the story.


LONG PANTS
Starring Harry Langdon and Priscilla Bonner
MOTION PICTURE MAGAZINE
July 1927

What happens to a young man's fancy when the springtime and his first pair of long pants arrive simultaneously is the theme of Harry Langdon's latest. It isn't one of his best pictures, but Harry has a crafty way of introducing two or three sequences so terribly funny that you go on laughing helplessly thru all the defective spots. And there are some moments in this one over which you'll laugh for a week. Harry is very amorous and very adolescent, and it's only natural that when a black-eyed adventures drives into his life in a large automobile, he should thenceforth be in the grip of a hopeless passion for her. Dispensing with the little girl next door to whom he has been betrothed and rescuing the black-eyed one from jail give him a chance for two of the most priceless bits of comedy current on the screen. There's nothing we can say about this except that Harry's unique genius is worth seeing always, so you'd better go.


LONG PANTS
Starring Harry Langdon and Priscilla Bonner
PICTURE PLAY
JuLY 1927

Harry Langdon will break your heart in "Long Pants," to the tune of laughter and chuckles; but he will break it just the same - if you are past the age of discretion.

Every man who has worshiped a goddess from afar will find in the awkward shyness of Langdon's Boy ­ in his first long pants ­ an echo of that time long ago when he made a fool of himself over a lady, remote and touched with the glamour of another world. It may have been the leading lady of the stock company, the college widow, or just a girl from the nearest big city; but it is safe to say that every man will remember her, whoever she may have been, and see something of himself in The Boy.

In this picture the unattainable lady is a haughty crook whose magnificent car pauses on a country road, while The Boy circles round and round on his bicycle, doing tricks to win a smile. Her kiss changes his feelings for his village sweetheart, and he goes to the city to rescue The Vamp from jail, where she languishes for her misdemeanors. In typical, wide-eyed Langdon innocence, he lends himself to The Vamp's machinations, and only when he learns, with incredulous surprise, that she is not a princess out of a fairy tale does he return home, sadder, but only slightly wiser.
This slight tale, employing only three sequences, is embellished with all manner of byplay and gags, which bring it to the length required for a feature. Whether it is as funny as "The Strong Man," I cannot say, but it seems not to matter, so long as, underlying the laughs, is the pathos of loneliness and through it run the fever and futility of adolescence.
Alma Bennett is highly effective as "The Vamp," and so is Priscilla Bonner as the deserted bride, while Albert Roscoe and Gladys Brockwell are The Boy's parents.


For more information, see "Long Pants" as our "Feature of the Month"

Return to reviews page