Written by: Arthur Ripley, Hal Conklin, Robert Eddy, Reed Heustis
Starring: Harry Langdon & Priscilla Bonner
Rating: [3.5/5]
Stories centered on love trying to unite always hold a special place in my heart because of the romanticism involved in making them worth rooting for in their efforts to find each other. A tactic, Frank Capra’s feature film debut, The Strong Man, tries to capture along with all of the zany silliness one would expect in a silent comedy film. Carrying just enough heart with it all, this feature makes for something quite enjoyable.
While serving in World War I, Paul (Harry Langdon) develops a penpal relationship with a girl back home. Once his time in the army comes to an end, when he returns to the country he attempts to seek her out to make their connection more of a reality. However, on his journey back to her, he encounters several obstacles.
Often forgotten when compared to other silent film comedy stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, in this feature we get one by Harry Langdon. Certainly bringing his own style of character in this feature, he plays at the tropes existing during this era in the way the story combines physical comedy with a touching story to ground everything. This also gives the characters something to strive for and makes all the difficulties they undertake worth it in the end. This journey for Paul provides just that and when we arrive at that climactic moment, it lands just as it should.
However, the journey of getting there certainly has its merits and ultimately brings comedy to the feature. Returning to America following his time serving in World War I, he takes the gig to work as the assistant to a strong man. This makes for several comedic sequences where he messes up in ways he really should not and gets involved in shenanigans. Near misses and swings landing helps make for these death-defying moments. Langdon definitely shines in these scenes allowing these sequences to contain an extra zip to them making them quite enjoyable and pleasing to the eye despite the print of this feature circulation not containing the best quality.
With these circumstances, they definitely get ratcheted up when these more dangerous circumstances impact his pen pal Mary (Priscilla Bonner) and how he must contend with criminals and bootleggers to unintentionally save her all under the notion of trying to get her heart. It shifts everything from simply impacting his physical person and shifts it to impacting someone he loves.
With this operating as Frank Capra’s directorial debut, it establishes right from the onset that the legendary director had a distinct interest in telling aspirational stories of the American Dream, but also through the particular lens of an immigrant. As one himself, this runs concurrently throughout many of his films and we see this Paul as a Belgian immigrant who serves his new country of the United States in World War I. In his efforts to get back to the country, he deals in the ways he differs from others but also tries to achieve the dream of getting a job and getting married to the woman he has fallen in love with through mere words exchanged on paper before attaining a photograph of her. Everything here culminates in such a sweet embrace between the two and getting right at the soul of what makes Capra such a tremendous filmmaker. Choosing to look at the optimism in his stories, he always wants to leave the audience feeling good about what they watched and walk away having faith in humanity. He does that right from the start with this feature.
Very enjoyable as a feature film, The Strong Man not only served as the first feature of one my favorite directors Frank Capra but also introduced me to another silent era star. While Langdon does some great work here, it becomes apparent why he never garnered the same acclaim and notoriety as Chaplin and Keaton as they just had something at a different level through their acting made explicitly clear when experiencing their films and then this one. With all that said, in this feature, we get something very funny through the circumstances Paul finds himself in while also delivering a touching immigrant story as one where you hope everything works out well for the central character because of the connection they build making this entire journey worth it.
Films with Josh 
