Shifting the blog's focus from music to silent movies, we note this weekend's special presentations by the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum. There will be a Circus History Live presentation on Sunday afternoon, featuring a recently restored 1902 film of a Ringling Brothers parade in Indianapolis. This weekend's Tribute To Al Christie is a retrospective covering the extremely prolific yet lesser known mogul/producer/director of silent era comedy.
This tribute presents 12 short films directed or produced by Christie.
Film historians, authors and silent comedy experts Sam Gill and Steve Massa, with film collector Michael Aus (who has provided cinematic rarities for the tribute), will tell us more about Christie Comedies, including a discussion on Zoom.
The American Cinematheque noted in the program notes for a 2013 retrospective of the Al Christie studio's films, "Christie's style was often risqué, sometimes bizarre and even borderline surreal, but always witty and hilarious."
The Saturday show of Christie films produced for Nestor in 1914-1915 features Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran, supported by actress, comedienne and frequent player in westerns Victoria Forde (soon to co-star with - and marry - cowboy star Tom Mix).
Sunday's program focuses on Christie Comedies from the 1920's and features most of the studio's flagship stars of the era: Dorothy Devore, Bobby Vernon, Neal Burns, Jimmie Adams, Walter Hiers and Jack Duffy.
Christie's studio aspired to a sophisticated alternative to knockabout comedy - more farcical and situational, less slapstick - during these times when the best known laugh factory was Mack Sennett's Keystone, and Hal Roach was just getting started with Rolin Films, featuring new star Harold Lloyd. The style of the Nestor and Christie Studio comedies of the teens was an ensemble approach, not dominated by any one player, and somewhere in between the situational humor exemplified by John Bunny and Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew and the more wacky approach of the first silver screen comedy star, Max Linder.
Headlining much of the Saturday program: Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran, who co-starred in farces with hints of slapstick and silliness - over 300 films - for Christie, beginning at Nestor comedies in 1914.
Eddie Lyons & Lee Moran would continue to be the exponents of the Christie Comedies house style to some degree even after they left to produce, write, direct and star in the Lyons-Moran Star Comedies series and feature films for Universal.
The Al Christie studio stuck to this approach, eschewing broad physical humor for the most part. Frequently, the films spotlighted comediennes and comic leading ladies such as Victoria Forde, Edith Roberts, Billie Rhodes, Betty Compson, Priscilla Dean, Ethel Lynn and Fay Tincher. In the 1920's, the studio produced feature films starring Christie Comedies stalwart Dorothy deVore (seen in Kidding Katie in Sunday's program).
During the heydey of Lyons & Moran at Christie, the silver screen comedy world, from Sennett and Arbuckle to former Sennett director Henry Lehrman to the "whirls" of circus clown Musty Suffer to Kalem's grotesque team of "Ham & Bud," to Vitagraph's cartoonist and magician turned-slapstickmeister Larry Semon, was headed in the opposite direction.
A decade after their WW1 era stars moved on, some (Betty Compson) to feature film stardom, Christie Comedies increasingly moved away from this style. As the 1920's progressed, Christie Comedies increasingly stressed chases and action. By the time Christie began releasing comedies through Paramount at the end of the silent era, the transition to a more knockabout-oriented Sennett inspired approach was complete.
The lineup of films for A Tribute To Al Christie is as follows:
Saturday March 20th:
Detective Dan Cupid (1914) Directed by Al Christie, starring Eddie Lyons, Lee Moran, Victoria Forde.
Behind The Screen (1915)
Lizzie's Dizzy Career (1915) Eddie Lyons, Lee Moran, Victoria Forde
Pruning the Movies (1915) Eddie Lyons, Lee Moran, Carmen de Phillipi
Mr. Fatima (1920) Eddie Barry, Earle Rodney, Helen Darling
Rocking The Boat (1921) Earle Rodney, Irene Dalton, Henry Murdock
Sunday March 21:
A Perfect 36 (1923) Bobby Vernon, Teddy Sampson
Fool Proof (1924) Neal Burns, Rosa Gore
Grandpa's Girl (1924) Jack Duffy, Kathleen Clifford
A Rarin' Romeo (1925) Walter Hiers, Jack Duffy
Swiss Movements (1927) Jimmie Adams, Billy Engle, Doris Dawson
LIVE ZOOM - 5:00pm PT 8:00pm ET
Sam, Steve, and Michael will be live for a Zoom discussion of Al Christie's films and comedy.
The aforementioned Circus Historical Society screening, Circus, Part IV - Wagon By Wagon, shall be at 4:00pm PT, 6:00pm CT, 7:00pm ET on Sunday.
We yet again extend a respectful tip of the Max Linder top hat to the museum for doing this monthly series of most welcome online events through this last year+ of pandemic lockdown. Looking forward to next month's program on the history of April 18, 1906 - San Francisco Earthquake. For more, check out the museum's YouTube channel.
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