Harry Langdon In Vaudeville: “A Night On The Boulevard”
During the 1909-10 season, Harry reworked his sketch. By April, he’d renamed it “A Night on the Boulevard, or Troubles With an Automobile.” The Langdons’ prop car was now officially uncooperative. He removed most of the lights from the auto and placed them on a specially painted backdrop depicting an avenue receding in the distance, with street lamps that could be illuminated. The effect was remarkably convincing and impressive. A critic for the Evening Journal of Lewiston, Maine, who caught a split week engagement in the town’s Music Hall, enthused, “The moment the curtain ascended upon this act, the audience liked it. When a stage setting receives the plaudits of an audience, then the eye sees something better than it is accustomed to (seeing). The scene represented a boulevard, with its numerous lights and beautiful roadbed. The perspective was wonderful; the eye seemingly could traverse the painted curtain for miles.” This reaction became so commonplace, The Langdons would eventually advertise it: “Always a Reception at the Start.”
Presumably at the urging of Harry Weber, his agent, Harry typed up A Night on the Boulevard and submitted it to the U.S. Copyright Office. He might have hand-delivered it; on the day it was received, May 8, 1912, The Langdons were appearing in Washington D.C. at the Academy Theater. The manuscript, coupled with reviews and photographs, provide a fair idea of what The Langdons were doing while on the cusp of major vaudeville stardom.
Johnnie: No...
Katie: Well, what are we stopping here for? Can’t we go any farther?
Johnnie: No…
Katie: Well, what’s the matter?
Johnnie: The wheels are all tired.
Katie ignores the pun, looks around, and to her delight sees the café. She asks Johnnie to call for the waiter, which he does… very softly. Nevertheless, the waiter “jumps out quickly and surprises Johnnie.”
Katie: Waiter, you may bring me a crème de menthe.
Waiter: (looking at Johnnie) And what will you have?
Johnnie: Toothpick.
At the waiter’s urging, Johnnie decides on “a nice high cold one,” intending beer, but the waiter brings him a glass of water. Johnnie gripes, “Hey, I am thirsty, not dirty.” Meanwhile, Katie sips her drink. Having exited, Tulley blows a “Devil whistle” from off stage.
Johnnie: Listen to the wind.
Katie: That wasn’t wind, Johnnie, that was an automobile that just passed here just then. Look, here comes another one.
My goodness, they must be running a race with each other! (Tulley blows the whistle again.) My goodness, that one came
so close to us, he nearly took a wheel off our car!
Through all this, Johnnie is looking suspiciously at Katie.
Johnnie: Did you see automobiles going by here?
Katie: Yes, going right by here.
Johnnie: Right by here???
Katie: Yes, going right by here.
Johnnie: (Looks over at Café) Waiter, bring me a Crème-de-Menthe.
This is a cue for a song from Rose. Although not specified, it’s possible that she and Harry dance a little, as the song concludes with the two of them “down stage standing together.” This leads to a nice bit of visual comedy.
Katie: You are now standing on the boulevard.
Johnnie: Yep.
Katie: And the clock just struck twelve.
Johnnie: Yep.
Katie: And you are all alone with me.
Johnnie looks at her out of the corner of his eye, then turns around and “blows out” all of the illuminated street lamps on the backdrop.
Katie: Well, I just wanted to tell you that you will make a pretty good chauffeur for my father.
And with that, Johnnie turns around and whistles, and the street lamps come back on. Katie interviews Johnnie for a time, with such exchanges as:
Katie: Suppose you were driving at the rate of 60 miles an hour, and a man was standing in the middle of the road. What
would you do to let him know that you were coming?
Johnnie: Write him a letter.
Katie: No, no, faster than that.
Johnnie: Send him a tele-scratch.
Katie: No, no, what would you blow?
Johnnie: My nose.
Katie: No, you would blow your horn.
Johnnie walks over to the car and touches the French Horn.
Johnnie: Here is a fine horn. (Playing it)
Katie: Yes, Johnnie, it sounds just like a band, doesn’t it?
Johnnie: Yep, that is a handy horn.
Katie: It is?
Johnnie: Yes, every time I run over anybody, I give them music while they are dying.
While this is going on, Tulley has changed into a chauffeur’s outfit and “drives” onstage in a prop taxi, stopping in left-center. He inquires for a preacher, as there is a couple in the cab that wants to get married right away. Johnnie informs him that his tires are punctured, at which point the chauffeur leaves. With the intention of getting a peek at the amorous couple, Johnnie tries hitting the hood of the taxi with an axe, but only succeeds in sending an adjacent street lamp six feet into the air and down again. Johnnie walks over to the fountain and fills a tin cup with water that emerges from the horse’s mouth.
Katie: Johnnie, what was that you were drinking?
Johnnie: Horse liniment.
Unseen by the audience, Tulley manipulates two cardboard cutouts of a man and woman’s head, and these cast shadows on the cab’s rear window. Johnnie therefore spies on the “couple,” who, from the audience’s viewpoint, appear to be kissing.
Katie: Johnnie, what are you doing?
Johnnie: Sight seeing.
Katie: You’d better try to fix up that man’s machine.
Johnnie: (Still looking at the shadows in the taxi’s window) It is already fixed.
Katie: How are the connections?
Johnnie: (Observing that the shadows are “kissing” without moving) Solid.
Katie: Do you think the connections will bust?
Johnnie: Not unless his face slips.
Tulley pulls down a shade in the taxi window, cutting off the view.
Johnnie: Show’s over.
This leads into Johnnie trying to get his auto started, first with a crank, then by kicking the front tire. To indicate that this has started the engine, Rose surreptitiously rattles a tin can filled with buckshot; she also fires a .38 revolver through a hole in the bottom, to simulate an explosion. Johnnie opens his toolbox (the words “Get busy” are painted on the inside lid, which the audience sees), and tries cranking the auto again. Rose fires off a couple of .22 cap pistols to simulate backfire. At that sound, Tulley runs on as the Policeman, yelling “STOP, STOP!” When another backfire is heard, the Policeman, believing he’s been shot, grabs his stomach and runs offstage.
Katie says she thinks there’s a leak in the gas tank, which of course is Johnnie’s cue to light a match to investigate, and the car “explodes” again. In what was probably the most spectacular visual gag, after Johnnie cranks the engine once more, he bends over to pick up a handkerchief. Rose manipulates a bellows with her foot that contains lycopodium powder (commonly used in fireworks) passed through a small flame of alcohol. The resulting burst of sparkling flame hits Johnnie in the rear end. Johnnie examines his pants.
Johnnie: Ain’t it warm. That is a pretty bad leak in that tank.
Katie: Yes, I have told you before that gasoline is very deceitful.
Johnnie: Yes, it talks behind your back, all right.
Katie tells Johnnie to phone the Depot and see if her train is on time. She points to a prop telephone on a lamp post, which leads to more visual nonsense as the phone slides up and down the post (manipulated by the property man). Finally the mouthpiece comes flying off the phone and hits Johnnie in the mouth. Katie cranks the auto, which starts up; the property man shaking the tin can of shot. When Johnnie hears this, he gets into the car, as does Katie… and just as they get settled, the steering wheel flies out of its place over Johnnie and Katie’s head. Johnnie reaches for the “For Hire” sign and turns it over. It now reads “For Sale.”
The orchestra strikes up a song, the stage lights go out (while the street lamps remain illuminated), and Harry and Rose sing a duet. As they sing, Harry flashes the search light through the audience, and the property man (using a rope attached to the bottom) pulls the car across the stage, where it exits on the right as the curtain descends.
Thunderous applause and encores follow.
The Langdons spent just about all of the 1911-12 season on the eastern seaboard, including, the week of November 6, 1911, a return to New York City at Keith-Proctor’s Fifth Avenue Theater on West 28th Street. Variety’s “Dash” liked the act enough to award it a new adjective: “Everything they have in their laughable skit, A Night on the Boulevard, shows goaheadativeness. The pair have a prop auto that’s a little dandy. They enter in it, and it is the best looking thing for a travesty buzz wagon yet shown. A pretty, attractive set is also carried. This, along with a second prop auto, and a company, makes the act look pretentious. The man and woman do very well with the comedy props and get a great deal from the material. The Langdons put it over ‘No. 3.’ For their newness and novelty, they should be welcome visitors around here.”
Some of the city’s daily papers also had kind things to say, which Harry dutifully quoted in a banner ad in the following week’s Variety.
Among the cities that season, the act played New Haven and Naugatuck, Connecticut; Lawrence and Springfield, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Lancaster, Scranton, Altoona and Johnstown, Pennsylvania; Trenton, New Jersey (Trenton Evening Times: “As the curtain rises the audience sees a boulevard brilliantly lighted with a long row of street lamps, converging until they almost go together. An automobile brings the Langdons on and then the comedy begins. The lines are bright and the comedy is beyond the ordinary”); Washington D.C. (Washington Herald: “The Langdons, who rely on scenic effects and imitation automobiles for their comedy, got many a laugh over the footlights”) and Atlanta, Georgia (Atlanta Constitution: “The Langdons… caused many hearty laughs, their act ending with a song that brought them several bows”).
The next day saw the team in Brooklyn at Keith’s Bushwick, followed by a split week at Keith’s Colonial (Monday-Wednesday) and Union Square (Thursday-Saturday). Returning from Philly, they spent the week of December 9 at the Colonial, then north a few blocks to Keith’s Alhambra, then further north to Keith’s Bronx for Christmas week, followed by a return to the Union Square for New Year’s week. They were well-received everywhere.
Leaving New York, a brief tour of Canada followed, including two consecutive weeks in Montreal at the Orpheum. Then it was back into the states, pushing ever westward toward Chicago’s Majestic Theater where, the week of June 21, the headliner was Marie Dressler, only a year away from her motion picture debut at Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios. The New York Clipper reported that The Langdons would spend the summer playing the Orpheum (outdoor) parks, followed by the Orpheum circuit proper beginning in late August.
October 20th found them on the west coast at Oakland’s Orpheum Theater, sharing the bill with Ed Wynn, among others. Working as an usher was a high school senior who would one day loom large in Langdon’s screen career and personal life: Vernon Dent. Dent had already been bitten by the showbiz bug; the day before Langdon’s opening, he had performed for his school’s Thespian’s club. Dent biographer Bill Cassara speculates, “As an usher, Vernon had to catch that show for at least one of the performances. Knowing Vernon, he must have introduced himself to every act.” A lifelong friendship may well have begun under these modest circumstances.
At the Pantages that same week, the Four Marx Brothers were also in Oakland headlining in Mr. Green’s Reception, an expanded version of their earliest comedy sketch, Fun In Hi Skool. We’ll never know what Harry thought about that, or if he realized that he’d been doing A Night on the Boulevard since the days when the Marxes were the Four Nightingales, yet there they were, headlining – albeit on a slightly lesser circuit – while he was still holding down the number three spot.
Being third on the bill was not an insult by any means, but it was the lowest of the “prestige” spots. The implications were that the latecomers had arrived, the shuffling of seats and chit-chat had ended, and now the real show would begin. The spot was always slotted with something that would snap the audience to attention; something flashy… and Langdon’s car and special effects were just what the manager ordered.
For Harry, it had been a thrilling year, what with spending the winter holidays in and around New York City, and debuting in Canada and California, but The Langdons were still considered on the fringes of “The Big Time.” They’d made inroads on the Keith and Orpheum circuits but had yet to headline anywhere. Harry had been in vaudeville long enough to know that, however spectacular, an act lasting eleven-to-fourteen minutes was unlikely to achieve headliner status. At the same time, he was reluctant to make any drastic changes beyond sharpening the dialogue and replacing worn out jokes. Recognition of A Night on the Boulevard was growing, as was his reputation as a comedian of note.
But it’s likely Langdon wasn’t thinking of motion pictures just yet. Movies were still the lowly stepchild of show business in 1913; the only affordable entertainment for poor immigrants and a means to chase patrons out of theaters for everyone else. Mack Sennett, himself a non- U.S. native, was tapping into these class distinctions for his Keystone Comedies, where cops, fops and dandies were forever being bested by the little guy (or gal) with few social graces but lots of gumption. And just as Langdon was gearing up for the new season, Sennett was reaching out to another vaudevillian – an English Music Hall comedian who was finishing up a tour on the Sullivan-Considine circuit – with an offer to join Keystone effective in December. The comedian, whose name was Charles Chaplin, accepted and started work in January 1914, and before Sennett knew what had happened, motion picture comedy evolved into art.
While Chaplin was making his earliest films, The Langdons trekked east again, but this season they’d be in New York City a single day, for another Sunday show at the Columbia Theater on February 22. Variety’s founder, Sime Silverman, caught them this time: “The Langdons were the hit of the afternoon in their On The Boulevard skit that employs a prop auto, with the man in a comedy make-up resembling John Burke’s (John and Mae Burke). The Langdons should find booking on the big time very easy. If not, there is something wrong with the bookers, for there’s nothing wrong with the act that also has a pretty woman for further recommendation.”
After the Columbia, it was a week in New Brunswick, New Jersey, then westward again, to all the old familiar places: Racine, Wisconsin; Waterloo, Iowa; et cetera, finishing up at Chicago’s Majestic Theater.
The following season brought more of the same: Keith’s circuit theaters on the East Coast, again in the #3 spot on the bill, including a four-week stint in New York City. Then on to D.C., then upstate New York (with two consecutive weeks at Keith’s Grand in Syracuse) and neighboring Pennsylvania; then Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, Alabama, Virginia. There were two separate stints at Chicago’s Majestic in April and June; in between, they inaugurated the summer season with a week at Coney Island’s New Brighton Theater beginning May 17, 1915. Reviews also rang familiar, such as the New York Clipper’s for their June Majestic appearance: “The Langdons, including Rose, Harry and Tulley, got no end of laughs with (their) freak automobile. All old Ford jokes were revived with some new ones injected. Boulevard scenic arrangements unusually beautiful. Clean dialogue, full laughs.” Variety, too, reviewed the performance: “The Langdons with their prop motor car was the most liked act of the early section. This act is always sure of enough laughs through the trick car and Harry Langdon’s fun.”
The characters: Rose Langdon as “Katie Speedington;” Harry as “Johnnie Flat-tire,” and younger brother James (Tulley) Langdon as Waiter, Chauffeur and Policeman. As the curtain slowly rises (“with lively music” from the pit orchestra), a clock is heard to strike twelve gongs. A blue light floods the stage; all others have been dimmed. “The scene is a drop in three (meaning the amount of stage space required is three-quarters deep), representing a boulevard with street lamps illuminated from back with electric lights.” A café sits on stage left, and a drinking fountain, with water that emerges from a horse’s head, is at stage right.
Enter, from the left, “a white touring car with (a) search light” on the front, four horns on the side (one of which is a French Horn with a bulb), a toolbox on the running board, and illuminated headlights. A sign on the front of the car says “For Hire.” Katie is in the back seat; Johnnie is her driver, outfitted in overcoat, cap and motoring goggles. The car comes to a stop aside the café, and the stage lights come up. A laughing Katie asks Johnnie if they were “scorching” (speeding).
Harry, Tulley and Rose Langdon in costume for “A Night on the Boulevard” 1910
The distribution of verbal and visual humor in A Night on the Boulevard is fairly even, but there’s little in the dialogue or business that would suggest the “Little Elf” character to come. Johnnie vacillates between stupid (such as when Katie questions him) and streetwise (when addressing the waiter or commenting on the taxi shadowplay), and there’s nothing written that suggests the shtick around which Langdon’s screen persona would be forged. On paper, at least, his character comes across as an American Chico Marx; notwithstanding the fact that, when The Langdons first performed this sketch, Chico hadn’t yet joined his brothers’ act. Given the reviews of the period, we can safely assume that Harry’s automobile gags produced the loudest laughs and his musical interludes with Rose were suitably charming.
A Variety ad from March 1911, illustrated by Harry
Keith & Proctor’s 5th Ave. Theatre, where The Langdons were first seen by New York City newspaper critics.
The start of the 1912-13 touring season found Harry, Rose and Tulley on their home turf, the Midwest. They opened in Racine, Wisconsin, for the Orpheum Circuit on August 26. “The Langdons in a spectacular travesty, A Night on the Boulevard, present a piece of acting, the automobile adding to the interest of the production,” remarked the Racine Journal-News. “Rose and Harry are the principals, they possess sweet voices and are funny in the extreme.”
The team hadn’t been in Racine since July 1910, before Tulley joined, when they’d played the less prestigious Bijou. Which, of course, was the one great characteristic of vaudeville: an act could travel for two years or more without seeing the same city twice. But that was not to be the case this year, as the U.B.O. routed them in the east once again. And so, beginning in September, they trekked eastward into Cincinnati, then Philadelphia and Washington DC, Rochester, and other spots until, on Sunday, November 12, they played the Columbia Theater in Manhattan. And, except for a one-week return to Philadelphia in early December, they’d be exclusive to the city’s five boroughs until January 4, 1913.
The Columbia was a burlesque house Monday through Saturday, but on Sundays it showcased refined vaudeville. The New York Clipper was there: “The Langdons, in their automobile act, showed a fine trick auto propelled and lighted by electricity, with many novel stunts, all of which were well liked and pronounced to be one of the best motoring acts. The lady sang well, and the he Langdon is a splendid comedian in make-up and action.”
Advertisement for Racine, Wisconsin’s Orpheum Theatre; August 24, 1912
Harry had another reputation, though, known primarily by his co-stars: he was superstitious. He wasn’t the only vaudevillian with this trait, of course, but in him it ran deep. As a boy he’d found a safety pin and carried it for luck throughout his career. He also considered the overcoat and slap shoes he wore on stage as lucky; once, when a well-intentioned porter gave the shoes a shine, Harry was beside himself, certain their charmed effect had been polished away. Thus his innate wariness and penchant to keep to what was working often conflicted with a desire to take his career to the next level. As a motion picture comedian he would mine the conflicts and contradictions within his nature and emerge from those depths with a rich vein of comedy.
A 1914 portrait of Harry as “Johnny Flat-tire”
If it sounds like things had stagnated for The Langdons, Harry must have felt the same way. He returned to Council Bluffs – both he and Rose appear in the 1915 Iowa Census, living in his parents’ home – and took some time during the summer to revamp the act, albeit in his cautious Harry way. The automobile remained the same, but it was now painted red (as it had been in 1906). The backdrop, sets and characters remained the same, but most of the situations and jokes were new. Most significantly, pantomime wouldn’t be performed by cardboard cut- outs but by Harry himself. He also saw fit to remove most of the clown makeup from his face, and exchanged the chauffeur’s cap and goggles for an ordinary hat with an upturned brim.
After ensuring the new act was as acceptable as the old, by year’s end Langdon changed its name. He tried Troubles of a Jitney Bus briefly, then settled on Johnny’s New Car. At the same time, he made an even more significant alteration: The Langdons were now billed as Harry Langdon and Company.
Advertisement for the Keith Grand Theatre, Syracuse, NY; January 2, 1915. By then, “A Night on the Boulevard” was considered “a laughing success.”
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The following is an excerpt from the forthcoming book “LITTLE ELF: A Celebration of Harry Langdon” by Chuck Harter & Michael J. Hayde, published by BearManor Media. All material herein is copyright 2011 by Charles W. Harter and Michael J. Hayde, and may not be quoted, excerpted or redistributed in any form without written permission from the authors.
