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The immigrant's saga into showbiz, couched by Harry Langdon and Frank Capra in the Book of Joshua and Keystone ruckus. Smack in the middle of No Man's Land, Langdon the Belgian doughboy vainly turns his gatling gun on a can of beans, his slingshot proves mightier. He's whisked away by a burly Hun (Arthur Thalasso) and the two turn up after the Armistice in Ellis Island as "Zandow the Great" and assistant, ready to enter the American Dream of vaudeville. Tracking down his pen-pal is the ex-recruit's journey, along the way he learns about New York City in the form of the pickpocketing giantess (Gertrude Astor) who gooses him in the back of a cab while fishing for cash in his trousers. (A priceless sight: Langdon slouching in terror while between attacks the amazon coolly lights a cig and adjusts her stockings.) The real sweetheart is a blind lass (Priscilla Bonner) in the local Gomorrah of hooch and vice ("Justice and decency have fled before the new law—Money"), her pastor father (William Mong) leads the Christian soldiers. Langdon the mysterious clown, naïve enough to medicate his congested chest with Limburger cream yet cagey enough to twice sucker-punch a grousing passenger. The climax puts him amid weights on stage before a saloonful of rowdy brawlers, and gives Capra's already-formidable technique a dynamic workout: The hero's time in the trenches comes in handy when smiting the sinners, from a trapeze he sprays them with liquor and bombards them with bottles, a cannonade brings down the Walls of Jericho. "To tuck the bed covers under your chin and sleep in peace" is the ultimate goal, the ending has Langdon in a new uniform stumbling between conformism and individuality, as befits a forerunner of It's a Wonderful Life. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |