CHAPLIN AND LANGDON SOLDIERS BY CHANCE 

Programme for Thursday 9 October 2025 at Pordenone’s Teatro Verdi

During the early 1920s, Mack Sennett needed to revive his School of Comic Cinema after being abandoned by many of his comic actors who established their own production houses, and after losing Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle and Mabel Normand to scandal. Against the advice of many of his collaborators, Sennett turned to a vaudeville actor, who met all his expectations in short order, becoming a huge star: Harry Langdon. The character he played was a boy in a man’s body – shy and ingenuous, tender and romantic, candid and innocent – who moves among adults in a hostile world. Although Langdon’s success was extraordinary, even by Hollywood’s standards, it was not destined to last.

The double feature on Thursday 9 October (9 p.m.) at Teatro Verdi in Pordenone compares the comic and melancholic art of Langdon and Chaplin by means of a very timely theme: war. The festival screens Soldier Man (1928) and Shoulder Arms (1918). Despite both films being set during the First World War and ending in similar ways, they are very different. The first film, starring Harry Langdon (with director Harry Edwards and Frank Capra as one of the screenwriters), was intended to be a parody of The Prisoner of Zenda, telling the story of a soldier who is unaware that the war has ended, and continues fighting for the king of the imaginary country Bomania. The resemblance between the two men (Langdon plays both roles) leads to a series of comical situations that make Soldier Man one of Langdon’s finest films. The copy from the UCLA Film and Television Archive is derived from the 35mm nitrate and it is of exceptional quality. The musical accompaniment is by Philip Carli on the piano.

The next film, Charlie Chaplin’s Shoulder Arms, is one of the most highly anticipated events of this edition of the festival. New York’s MoMA, which is presenting its new restoration in its world premiere, promises a film that is “different” from any other copy available until now, thanks to a meticulous reconstruction showcasing Chaplin’s artistry. Shoulder Arms was filmed during WWI––with the premiere held on 20 October 1918––when audiences were still traumatised by wartime events and by the global influenza pandemic. In place of the usual nationalistic and propaganda films saturating cinemas, Chaplin proposed a revolutionary anti-military satire offering desperately needed comic relief. Audiences rewarded him by making it the top performing comedy of the year. Other cast members include Syd Chaplin and Edna Purviance, who was the female lead in Chaplin’s acting company between 1915 and 1923, and who would remain friends with him throughout her life. The live musical accompaniment is provided by Daan van den Hurk, based on Chaplin’s score for the film.

At 9.45, the morning’s feature is an Italian film from 1913, Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei (The Last Days of Pompeii) directed by Eleuterio Rodolfi and produced by Turin-based Ambrosio, one of Italy’s oldest film production houses. A film with the same title had already been released in 1908, and in 1913, in addition to Ambrosio’s version, yet another film with the same title was released by Pasquali, another production company in Turin. Ambrosio immediately took its competitor to court. Worthy of mention in Rodolfi’s version is the interpretation of the lead, Fernanda Negri Pouget, and the presence in the cast of Jean Fall, the first black actor to appear in an Italian film. Many years later, in 1959, in his debut (though he is not credited), Sergio Leone directed yet anotherGli ultimi giorni di Pompei.

At 2 p.m., a rare film by Abel Gance, the director of the epic Napoleon, Le droit à la vie (1916), will be presented in its new version restored by Cinémathèque française. Then comes the 1919 film The White Heather by Maurice Tourneur, a film that had been believed lost until 2022. It was recently restored from a positive nitrate print by Eye Filmmuseum, curated by the San Francisco Film Preserve, and with financial support from the National Film Preservation Foundation. The film’s amazing underwater shots were made possible by the invention of a unique technology, and on 14 July 1919, the San Francisco Chronicle declared it “the most thrilling and novel scene ever pictured”.

A 4.45 p.m. we will see Malcolm St. Clair’s 1925 delightful comedy Are Parent’s People?, based on an original story by prolific writer, screenwriter and women’s rights activist Alice Duer Miller. The theme is divorce, but told from an original point of view, that of a young schoolgirl whose life is being turned upside-down by her parents’ “incompatibility” and who is being pulled from both sides. The film stars two excellent and elegant professionals, Florence Vidor and Adolphe Menjou, and eighteen-year-old Betty Bronson who illuminates the entire film with her grace and beauty. After seeing her film test, playwright James M. Barrie personally chose her to play Peter Pan in the film directed by Herbert Brenon. In 1964, Betty Bronson spoke with Kevin Brownlow about the special atmosphere on the set of Are Parent’s People?, recalling St. Clair’s warmth, humour and sense of fun. St. Clair worked extremely quickly, completing the film in just twenty-one days, with a great deal of improvisation, and finding brilliant and original solutions for the shots.

The online festival continues on MyMovies with L’ombra (IT, 1923) by Mario Almirante, starring the diva Italia Almirante Manzini. The film, accompani on the piano by Michele Catania, is available from 9 p.m. on Thursday 9 October for 48 hours.

The Pordenone Silent Film Festival / Le Giornate del Cinema Muto is made possible thanks to the support of the Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia, the Ministry of Culture – Direzione Generale Cinema, the city of Pordenone, the Pordenone-Udine Chamber of Commerce, the Fondazione Friuli and with the participation of BCC Pordenonese e Monsile.