Long Pants
About Long Pants
Harry Shelby’s mother has kept him in knee pants. The day he gets long pants he is supposed to marry Priscilla, the girl next to him since childhood. He wants Bebe Blair, a city woman with a mob boyfriend. When Bebe is jailed for smuggling narcotics he tries to help and lands in trouble. His parents push the wedding to Priscilla. Before it, he lures Priscilla into the woods to shoot her. His top hat jams over his eyes, he loses the gun in the leaves, and he tangles in barbed wire. She finds the gun and fires. He runs to the city. Bebe has escaped. She hides in a crate he hauls in public. He picks up an alligator crate by mistake. She uses him as lookout on stick-ups, then a backstage shooting stamps the crowd over him. Hurt, he goes home and sits down to grace without a word.
Cast & crew
More about Long Pants
Frank Capra directed. Arthur Ripley wrote the story. Robert Eddy and Tay Garnett wrote the script. Harry Langdon produced, starred, and is credited as editor. Elgin Lessley and Glenn Kershner photographed. First National released it on 26 March 1927. It runs 60 minutes. Another title is Johnny Newcomer. Priscilla Bonner plays Priscilla. Gladys Brockwell, Alan Roscoe, and Alma Bennett are billed. Frankie Darro, Bud Jamison, and Glenn Tryon are in the cast lists.
Themes
Making
Capra stages the long pants as the moment the boy thinks he can choose the vamp. The woods scene is played as a botched murder, not a change of heart, and the dinner-table grace is the return.
Reviews
Frank Capra said the film was a success with the audiences who saw it then.
Look
Elgin Lessley and Glenn Kershner shot the knee-pants house, the woods, and the crate dragged through the city.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
A 60-minute print survives.
Notes
- The murder attempt fails because the hat covers his eyes and the gun vanishes in the leaves.
- The crate mix-up includes a mannequin policeman, a dog that takes his shoe, and an alligator.
- Capra later said audiences took to the picture at the time.
- Langdon’s company is the producer. First National is the distributor.
Scenes
- The first pair of long pants arrives with a wedding attached.
- In the woods the top hat blinds him and Priscilla fires the lost gun.
- Bebe travels in a crate. He hauls the alligator crate instead.
- A theater stampede runs over him. He comes home and joins grace.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Long Pants (1927).webm)
