This is a great short comedy from the time when Harry Langdon has been fully established as a screen presence, had found an environment where his style of comedy could really flourish, and had not yet moved into features from his series of two-reel comedies for Mack Sennett. "Lucky Stars" could almost be said to be half a funny comedy and half a really nice little twenty-minute character study.
The focus here is the Langdon character as a trusting innocent. He believes implicitly in the prediction of a probably charlatan fortune teller who tells him to follow his destiny of becoming a doctor. He lost-little-boy persona likes and believes in everyone he meets after that, and there's something haunting and unforgettable in the comedy of this film as the helpless little man is continually put upon by the rampant untrustworthiness of that we the audience can see around Harry. Comedy comes from the fact that we are forced to realize that, because we do know what is really going on, we are not as innocent as Harry, even though somewhere inside we all feel as if we are.
After a shocking and funny episode in which Harry simply does not realize that if you have gotten on the wrong train you do not rectify the situation by jumping off it, he becomes a "doctor" by having his money stolen by and becoming the lackey of a shifty snake oil sales man -- total trust has made him believe in a man who unwittingly makes him a crook. They wind up in a surprisingly grimly realistic Wild West town, and of course, further comic complications arise. Harry's comic timing on film is perfect by now, a joy to behold. He's constantly turning moments that would have flown by unnoticed in other people's films into memorable comic bits (look at his face after the conductor tells him he got on the wrong train -- he keeps chatting amiably for a moment before he face falls and becomes a picture of terror). See also a wonderful digression in which Harry cannot be distracted from a glass of beer that he is hugely excited about have acquired in a saloon.
Harry Langdon himself got his show business start performing in real-life medicine shows, so it's possible some autobiographical elements helped inspire this film. It's like a microcosm of the Langdon comedy world; perhaps the moment that encapsulates it is when Harry goes blissfully to sleep on the shoulder of the beautiful Natalie Kingston -- as she stealthily pulls out a knife with which to attack him. The vestige of a trademark Mack Sennett chase scene at the end is so much an afterthought that instead of distracting from the proceedings it becomes merely one more funny sight gag.
This is a very funny -- and also somehow resonant and a little poignant -- short that's a great example of Langdon's work.
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