The Strong Man

Vahva mies. US (c) 1926 First National Pictures. PC: Harry Langdon Corp. PRES: Richard A. Rowland. D: Frank Capra. SC: Capra, Tim Whelan, J. Frank Holliday, Murray Roth - Hal Conklin (adapt.) - Arthur Ripley (story) - Harry Langdon (story and intertitles) - Clarence Hennecke, Bob Eddy (intertitles). DP: Elgin Lessley, Glenn Kershner. AD: Lloyd Brierly. ED: Harold Young. Starring: Harry Langdon (Paul Bergot), Priscilla Bonner (Mary Brown), Gertrude Astor (Gold Tooth), Arthur Thalasso (Zandow the Great). 2098 m /24 fps/ 74'. A Rohauer 1981 reissue with beautiful image, frame cropped for sound, lousy Lee Erwin organ score, from Winstone. Viewed at Orion, Helsinki, 25 Aug 2005. Capra's first feature as a director is already a masterpiece, very carefully produced and vigorously built to a rousing climax. In the prologue Harry is a soldier in WWI, then he arrives past the Statue of Liberty to Ellis, and goes in search of his mail-girlfriend Mary Brown, naively looking for her in Manhattan. He meets a vamp: this sequence is masterfully built to brilliant comedy, as the vamp tries to retrieve a roll of money from his pants, and Harry misunderstands the situation. As an assistant to the strongman Zandow he travels in a bus and annoys everyone with his cough and a box of Limburger cheese. The little town of Cloverdale has become a haven for crime. There Harry meets his Mary, who is the blind daughter of the parson. Zandow gets drunk, and Harry has to step in for him in a huge saloon. This sequence is the wonderful climax of the film, first with Harry's helpless motions in front of the irate audience, and then his one-man battle with the drunken mob. As an ex-soldier, he turns Zandow's big gun into his own use, and the saloon comes tumbling down. He is appointed the sheriff of Cloverdale, but needs the help of his blind fiancee as he is about to tumble down from the sidewalk. - Langdon at his best in the vamp sequence and in the saloon sequence. - Already a personal work of Capra with a quasi-autobiographical Ellis Island scene. The theme of the blind loved one is repeated in The Miracle Woman. The theme of honour that cannot be bought returns in Platinum Blonde, for instance.