User Reviews

Like most of the great silent film comedians Harry Langdon struggled to regain his footing when talkies came along. Harry, whose place in the top echelon was already slipping prior to the sound revolution, kept plugging away with varying degrees of success but never attained the heights reached in his best silent movies. If you're curious about his work seek out the feature-length The Strong Man, a genuine delight, or his Sennett shorts from 1924-26. But if you're interested in Langdon's talkies The Shrimp is an enjoyable comedy that holds special appeal for film buffs.

The plot is a barely-disguised reworking of the basic situation from W.C. Fields' 1927 silent feature Running Wild, in which a timid man undergoes a personality change, becoming newly assertive and avenging himself on the bullies who formerly tormented him. It's gratifying to see the worm turn, though a little troubling to observe that this makes both Fields and Langdon bullies themselves in the final scenes of these films. For me the situation works better in this short than it does in the Fields feature, and it suits Langdon better than it did Fields. Harry was certainly well cast as the put-upon "Shrimp" of the early scenes. His voice matched his eerily childlike face --hard to believe he was in his mid-40s here-- and his performance feels more assured than in some of his other sound films from this period. (That said, there's a surprising moment in his opening scene where Harry fluffs a line, the kind of thing you find only in early talkies. But somehow it fits Harry's persona.) Most of the story is set in a boarding house, where Harry is the timid lodger who is bullied by practically everyone in the household. Jim Mason, an actor who specialized in playing nasty characters, is Harry's number one enemy.

Langdon was working at the Hal Roach Studio at this time, so the film benefits from the presence of contract players Max Davidson and the gorgeous Thelma Todd in supporting roles; Davidson is especially fun as a mad doctor in a white lab coat, ranting like a loony as he explains to an audience of medical students how he's going give Harry the courage of a bulldog. Rather than "courage" the new Harry comes off more like a crazed Mr. Hyde, but it's undeniably satisfying to watch him retaliate against obnoxious bully Mason. Speaking of Mr. Hyde, the climactic scene where Harry fights back features a startling overhead camera shot that looks like something out of a horror movie.

It may not rank with his very best work, but The Shrimp is an amusing short which demonstrates that Harry Langdon could rise to the occasion in talkies with decent material and support.

In the 1920s, Harry Langdon was well on his way towards being one of the top film comedians. Yet inexplicably, after some very bad career choices, his career went into a steady decline from which he never recovered. His films for Hal Roach Studios during this time are just painful to watch--particularly if you love early comedies (like I do). Mostly, they just aren't funny and Langdon's sense of comedic timing was off--way, way off.

The plot of "The Shrimp" seems like it might provide him with a chance to shine. He plays his usual mousy-type guy and lives in a boarding house full of jerks. They take advantage of his wimpiness to play a lot of nasty jokes on him and bully him about all the time.

In the next scene, a Professor gives a demonstration where he has created a serum to make wimps into tough guys. Naturally, the wimp he demonstrates this on is Harry--and eventually Harry returns home to dispense some justice for all the indignities he's endured. Seeing Langdon this aggressive and mean is pretty funny--and quite a twist. If only the other Hal Roach-produced films with Langdon were like this! Finally...a short with a few laughs! By the way, the Professor in this short was played by Max Davidson. While it's very hard to find his films today, see if you can find one. They are hilarious--and it's a shame he's pretty much forgotten today.

I'm a big fan of both Harry Langdon and the output of the Hal Roach Studios from this era (as well as shrimp, for what it's worth), and this is the second I've seen of the eight shorts he starred in there. It seems that these two one-of-a-kind comic influences cam together in some pretty strange and unpredictable ways with some quite unforgettable comedies the result. "The Shrimp" is quite funny, and pretty out there.

Harry's naive, lost little boy character works well when he's made a victim of the harsh realities of the real world, and that situation occurs with greater force than ever at the beginning of this film as we start with an extended sequence in which Harry lives in a boarding house where all the other residents delight in constantly playing cruel pranks on him. Harry is funny as usual reacting to these -- but this sequence also serves to set up the cruel world around Harry and his character for something more unusual in of of his films, a science-fiction premise.

This one resembles in concept a bit what would be used later for Charley Chase in "Now We'll Tell One," but of course it plays out very differently. Harry is given a transfusion of the courage of a bulldog by a mad scientist, and how this plays out is the real humor of this film. Langdon's performance is very funny and wonderfully in-character as Harry, stunned by his own new bravery, goes back to the boarding house and retaliates on his neighbors with several hilariously random violent acts designed to show he's the boss. Somehow they're funnier because we can tell Harry, like a little boy, is more concerned with showing us that he's being violent than with actually being violent. Then, of course, he picks fights over random orders like, "You! Stop eating candy!" This short also benefits from the famous Hal Roach stock company of performers; the lovely Thelma Todd has a nice turn as one of Harry tormentors. Not only did she star in her own comedy series, but she was a leading lady for Harry Langdon, Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase, The Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, Wheeler & Woolsey, and Jimmy Durante. Not unimpressive. The enjoyably over-the-top mad doctor is the talented Max Davidson, who had a successful series of starring shorts with Roach in the late silent era, but his sound roles were probably limited by his noticeable German accent. The director is Charley Rogers, also an occasional on screen comic. It's good he could build a rapport with Langdon in these film, because he would form half a comedy team with him in a pair of feature comedies years later.

This is a very original and odd -- and pretty memorable -- Langdon comedy. He definitely didn't have to give up on his tendency to black humor when he went over to Hal Roach and the talkies, and that's a good thing in this case.

THE SHRIMP is more heavily plotted than the previous Langdon-Roach fare but that doesn't keep it from being a surprising change of pace as Langdon is called on to act as two version's of his 'Baby' character and make this a most satisfactory short in the series. The old adage of 'the worm turns' has been a comic staple since the time of the Greeks and Romans took turns beheading each other. That's nothing compared with watching meek, childlike Harry Langdon becoming a golf club-welding dictator. "You! Stop eating candy!"

Harry is the beleaguered renter in a boardinghouse filled with sadistic bullies who, for some reason, all enjoy tormenting Harry at every turn. As he is tripped, kicked and has his chair constantly pulled out from under him at the dinner table, Harry tries to be a good sport about it by laughing along with everyone else. We've seen this side of Harry before; the genial clown who wants to be so liked by the likes of a gruff Vernon Dent that he would skip sideways down the street with him just so he could watch every facial expression of his friend. But not even good-natured Harry would want to be friends with this group of wretched louses. What keeps him there is his girl, who's parents own the boardinghouse. She is always telling him to stand up for himself, but to no avail. It doesn't help that her dad is a lout who works his wife like a slave and joins in with the torturing of Harry. But the two main tormentors in the house are Jim (Jim Mason - who specialized at playing oily snakes. He tried to evict Our Gang's grandma in FLY MY KITE (31)) and his girlfriend (Thelma Todd - in one of her best mean-spirited performances.)

When all of this nastiness becomes almost too much to bear a convenient plot point is introduced that could had made Charley Chase proud. Harry is chosen as a guinea pig for a crazed scientist's (Max Davidson) experiment in personality changes that makes him more assertive and tough - all of which sounds antithetical to being Harry Langdon. He accomplishes this by losing his stammering speech habit and speaking in a lower, monotone cadence. But the rest is still all Harry and the effect is quite funny. When he takes after Thelma she is aghast that he dares speak to her in such a manner so to make his point he begins pushing her backwards into a chair. Whenever he is about to go too far and strike Thelma his girl admonishes him and he stops. It's still Harry 'the Baby' only he has been turned into a demented gentle giant. And so it goes throughout the house righting all wrongs with force. He is even rough with mother by demanding that she stop scrubbing floors by literally picking her up and throwing her into a chair telling her to relax. The climatic fight with Jim has Keaton overtones to it as Harry bites, claws, and wrestles the bully into submission. And being Harry, his final bit of retribution is to chase the house cat down the street for some earlier slight. A Langdon never forgets.

Shrimp, The (1930)

*** (out of 4)

I never thought I'd live to see the day where Harry Langdon would turn in a hilarious short for the Hal Roach studio. In the film Harry plays a wimp living in a boarding house full of mean people picking on him from the time he gets up until he goes to sleep. Harry is selected to take part in a scientific experiment where a doctor takes timid mean and turn them into brave beasts. Of course, Harry goes back to the boarding house for revenge. THE SHRIMP is without a doubt the best I've seen from Langdon's Roach days but I'd probably go a tad bit further and say it ranks right up there with the best work of his career. In the previous Langdon-Roach films you often had to sit through one long, drawn out joke that simply wasn't funny. It was as if Langdon would just let the camera role and he'd do whatever he wanted even if it wasn't funny and if it didn't add anything to the film. The director here doesn't let any of this stuff happen and instead he just keeps the action going and at a very fast pace. Langdon does a terrific job playing the victim here but where he really shines are during the scenes where he must be tough and take on his previous bullies. His toughness starts off by pushing around Thelma Todd who was constantly torturing him. You'd think it would be a little off beat seeing him push around a woman but it's actually pretty funny. Things pick up when he gets to the men and begins to boss them around. Both halves of the film are extremely funny and this is without question one Langdon film you could recommend to anyone.