The Strong Man

Frank Capra, First National, 1926, his first feature as credited director. Harry Langdon, the baby-faced comic Sennett had not quite known what to do with, plays a Belgian soldier who comes to America as assistant to a strong man, looking for a pen pal (Priscilla Bonner). A frontier town, a crooked saloon, a weak-eyed girl in the church. Langdon's style is delay: he lets a gag hang until it becomes uneasy. Capra keeps the camera still enough for that delay to register. The climax puts the strong man's cannon in a revival tent.