Harry Langdon
Birthday: 1884-06-15 Place of Birth: Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA
Synopsis
Acting
Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films
Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara; The Miracle Man (1919), with Lon Chaney; He Comes Up Smiling (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks; an early lost sound film, Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), filmed in early Technicolor, and the only color footage of silent star Clara Bow, Red Hair (1928). The program is rounded out with interviews of film preservationists involved in identifying and restoring these films. Also featured is a new interview with Diana Serra Cary, best known as "Baby Peggy", one of the major American child stars of the silent era, who discusses one of the featured fragments, Darling of New York (1923).
When Comedy Was King
A compilation featuring comedic stars of the silent era including Fatty Arbuckle, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Charley Chase, and Laurel and Hardy.
Swingin' on a Rainbow
A young girl goes to New York to find a band leader who has stolen all the songs she wrote and is passing them off as his own.
Hot Rhythm
Jimmy O'Brien (Robert Lowery)and Sammy Rubin (Sidney Miller), write jingle commercials for radio, and meet Mary Adams (Dona Drake), who wants to break into radio as a soloist for a band.
Spotlight Scandals
A down-on-his luck actor teams up with a singing barber to do a vaudeville act. Its success eventually leads them to Broadway, but things start to go awry.
Zenobia
A modest country doctor in the antebellum South has to contend with his daughter's upcoming marriage and an affectionate medicine show elephant.
My Weakness
A wealthy young man bets his uncle that he can transform a clumsy cleaning lady into a glamorous fashion plate, then marry her off to his bachelor cousin.
Hallelujah, I'm a Bum
A New York tramp falls in love with the mayor's amnesiac girlfriend after rescuing her from a suicide attempt.
A Soldier's Plaything
A pair of hapless half-wits get into continuous mischief during the occupation of Germany after WW I.
