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6.2/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 6.2/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. So Long Letty remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have any interest in seeing what the absolute chaos of early sound cinema looked like, So Long Letty is a pretty great place to start. It is definitely worth watching if you’re a film nerd who likes seeing how the medium struggled to find its feet when microphones were first introduced.
Most people today will probably find it incredibly annoying because everyone is constantly shouting. If you hate high-pitched 1920s stage acting, you should probably stay far away from this one.
The movie is basically built around Charlotte Greenwood. She is this tall, lanky woman who seems to be made entirely of rubber and enthusiasm.
She plays Letty, and she is just... loud. She does these high kicks that look like they might actually hit the ceiling of the studio.
The plot is one of those typical bedroom farces where everything depends on people being incredibly dishonest for no real reason. Uncle Claude, played by Claude Gillingwater, shows up and he’s the classic grumpy old man with money.
He’s got his granddaughters with him, and he’s looking for his nephew Tommy. For some reason, the couples decide the best way to get a check from him is to swap spouses.
It’s very messy and honestly, it’s kind of exhausting to keep track of who is supposed to be with who. I found myself stopped caring about the money about twenty minutes in.
There is this one scene at the beach where the costumes are just fantastic. Everyone looks like they are wearing wool suits that probably weighed fifty pounds when they got wet.
I noticed a moment where a character walks toward the back of the set and the sound just completely drops out for a second. It’s like the microphone was hidden in a flower pot and he just walked out of its range.
The acting is very big, which makes sense because most of these people were probably used to playing to the back row of a theater. Harry Gribbon is doing a lot of face-pulling that feels like it belongs in a silent short like The Iron Mule.
Actually, the whole thing feels like a stage play that someone accidentally filmed. There are these long takes where the camera just sits there while people run in and out of doors.
It lacks the visual movement you see in something like The Barker. In this one, the camera feels like it’s bolted to the floor because the sound equipment was probably too heavy to move.
Uncle Claude has a mustache that looks like it was glued on in a hurry. In one close-up, you can almost see the edge of the spirit gum peeling off while he yells at his nephew.
There is a musical number where Letty sings about her name, and it goes on for a long time. It’s charming in a weird, antique way, but the high notes are a bit much for the early Vitaphone recording tech.
The movie gets slightly better once the confusion hits its peak. There’s a frantic energy that feels real, even if the jokes are a bit moldy by today’s standards.
I kept thinking about The Lottery Man while watching this, mostly because of the shared DNA of the "greedy relative" trope. But this one is way more aggressive with its comedy.
Patsy Ruth Miller is in this too, and she’s fine, but she gets totally overshadowed by Greenwood. It’s hard to look at anyone else when there’s a six-foot woman doing literal gymnastics in the middle of a living room.
The ending is very abrupt. Like, the movie just decides it’s done and stops.
It’s not a masterpiece, and it’s definitely not "profound." It’s just a loud, sweaty piece of history that shows how much people liked watching tall women kick their legs in 1929.
If you like Pre-Code weirdness and don't mind a little bit of ear-splitting soprano singing, give it a look. Just don't expect it to make a whole lot of sense.
Also, the way they talk about marriage is hilariously cynical for the time. It feels much more modern in its attitude toward divorce and switching partners than you’d expect from a movie that’s nearly a century old.
Wait, I forgot to mention the nephew Tommy. He’s played by Grant Withers, and he mostly just looks confused the whole time, which is probably how the audience felt too.
Anyway, it’s a weird one. Watch it for the kicks, stay for the bizarre audio glitches. 🎬
IMDb 6.2
1916
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