Al Christie — Everybody Calls Him Al (1927) 🇺🇸
Such is the reputation of Al Christie, one time director of comedies for Nestor and later Universal, now a producer of the rib-tickling type of film in his own right, and one of the best-known sportsmen in Southern California.
by Bert Bernard
“Everybody calls him Al.” From the least important stage carpenter, to his highest salaried employee, the Boss is “just plain Al” — and he likes it.
Christie has never known an “upstage” day in all the years he has been associated with motion pictures, according to those who know him well, and to this particular feature many attribute his success. It seems that one may always have a word with Al. He’s never too busy to listen, though he has troubles of his own. Al is short on advice, long on cure.
Christie says he’s glad “everybody calls him Al.”
“I can get more work to the minute from a man who feels he can meet me on even terms, than from one who has the fear of the Lord in his heart for ‘the big boss,’ and if my associates call me Al, they know I’ll call them Jim, or Bill, or other things if they deserve them.
“No, sir! They’re aren’t any bosses on the Christie lot, and only one man who has to take the guff every day. There’s plenty of guff, and trouble in this business, you know, so I’ve appointed my brother Charlie as chief guffer, and trouble shooter. I’ve turned over all my worries to him; he’s a big, husky fellow and can stand it. Now that the details of the business are in his hands I have time to attend to the production of our comedies. It works great.”
The writer wants to delve for a moment into the career of Al Christie. His was far from meteoric, as that expression is defined today. There have been few sky-rockets in Al Christie’s rise to success. His has been a matter of hard plugging, trying to make pictures the public wants — and at last Al thinks he has the trick in hand. Christie’s policy is a simple one — but all successful policies are simple. Al makes pictures by reading the newspapers, getting the trend of the public mind, feels the pulse of their desires — and then starts shooting. Christie varies this procedure a trifle on occasion by following “successes.” By that I mean that his idea is to make in two reels a picture that follows along comedy lines, the productions of the larger companies.
For instance, should there be a flair for sea pictures Al Christie will order a two-reel comedy of the salty variety; should the public demand an army epic Al will construct one in just two reels. Then there is the topical type such as Bobby Vernon makes. Bobby for a long time featured the country-boy role, and still does to a certain extent, but his pictures of late have taken a decided turn toward public popularity because of the subjects chosen. You’ll see Bobby as a Scotchman, an Italian, a Spaniard, and a Frenchman this year. So Al keeps up with the times and the demands of his picture-going public. He admits he is always trying to keep “just a step ahead,” though in no sense is he an iconoclast or a “set the style” producer.
“To save time is to lengthen life,” is a Christie motto, so the Christie’s specialize on two-reel comedies and have made marvelous strides in development.
Fifteen years ago Christie took the first motion pictures to Hollywood with a little group of then unknown actors. Today there are twenty-four studios actively making pictures in the film center of which Hollywood is the hub, making a total of 114 new films in actual production this date.
When Al Christie took Hollywood’s first pictures as manager and comedy director of the Nestor company which prospected westward in 1911, the first movie, a little three-hundred-foot affair, was shot without benefit of fancy electrical equipment in an orange grove on Hollywood boulevard where now stands the Regent Hotel, owned and operated by the pioneer Christie brothers, Al and Charles, the latter of whom is now president of the Association of Motion Picture Producers, which numbers in its ranks companies capitalized at many millions of dollars, and operating in a group of the finest studios in the world, which, the producers say, will always stay in Hollywood and its environs.
Although Al Christie pioneered to Hollywood in 1911 and started the film Capitol’s first studio, it was not until January 6th, 1916, that the Christie Film Company was formed as an independent producing company and thus this month marks the tenth anniversary of the company as an organization. The ten years of operation have seen the comedy business grow with remarkable strides and attain a position of respect in the motion picture industry.
Today — ten years after the little pioneer company was organized with a few thousand dollars capital. Laugh Month is being celebrated through the length and breadth of America, and the entire motion picture industry is pointing with pride to the comedies which have been the outstanding step forward in the picture business of the last few years.
The progress of comedy in the two-reel field as well as in feature pictures has received a most remarkable impetus this last year with the release of pictures which have focused the attention of movie fans and exhibitors on the fact that this is a business of ENTERTAINMENT, and in entertaining the public it is generally the laugh makers among the successful pictures which ring the bell the hardest.
The Christie company specialized in one-reel comedies and released them through independent exchanges from 1916 until 1920. The featured players in these comedies were Betty Compson, Neal Burns, Billie Rhodes, Harry Ham, Ethel Lynne, Eddie Barry, Jimmie Harrison, Jay Belasco, Patricia Palmer, Billy Mason, Bobby Vernon, Elinor Field, Dorothy Dane, Clarine Seymour, Earl Rodney, Dorothy Devore, Helen Darling, Vera Steadman, and many others. At the same time a large number of Mutual-Strand one-reel comedies were produced by the same company.
Then came Christie’s first series of two-reel comedies, also released through the state-right market. There were twelve of these featuring such players as Fay Tincher, Molly Malone, Alice Lake, Colleen Moore, Bobby Vernon, Edith Roberts, Neal Burns, and others who continued on through the next era of Christie pictures.
Beginning in July, 1920, Educational Exchanges took over the distribution of Christie Comedies, which were all of the two-reel variety. Twenty-four comedies were produced in this Christie Educational first series, and the attention of the trade was quickly directed toward the sudden leap into prominence of Educational, which up to that time had dealt only in short subjects of a purely educational and scenic nature.
Christie continued to distribute its product through Educational, releasing twenty-four Christie Comedies in the series of 1921-22, twenty in the series of 1922-23, and twenty in the 1923-24 series. During these years stars were developed and the two-reel business grew steadily in the regard of exhibitors and the public. The first real efforts on the part of exhibitors to advertise their comedy attractions were made during these years when Christie products were forging to the front of the comedy business.
In the 1924-25 series of pictures but ten Christie Comedies were released, while two new star series were produced, one being Bobby Vernon Comedies and the other Walter Hiers Comedies. The trend toward star series is further indicated when this year a series of Jimmie Adams Comedies was added to the large program which Christie is making for release through Educational Exchanges.
For the releasing season of 1925-26 four great series of two-reel comedies have been made. There are eight Bobby Vernon Comedies, six Jimmie Adams Comedies, and six Billy Dooleys’, and ten Christie Comedies, the latter featuring Jack Duffy, this year’s most outstanding find, and Neal Burns.
A great host of popular supporting players are seen in these various two-reel series; Frances Lee is the regular lead with Bobby Vernon Comedies; Duane Thompson with Walter Hiers; and Molly Malone opposite Jimmie Adams. Playing supporting leads in the Christie series are such girls as Vera Steadman, and Natalie Joyce. Yola d’Avril, Jean Lorraine, Marian Andre and Aileen Lopez are new faces in the stock company.
The comedians in the stock forces are Bill Irving, Eddie Baker, Lincoln Plumer, Fred Peters and Bill Blaisdell. Others who are playing good roles in the new season’s product are Gale Henry, Victor Rodman, Ward Caulfield, Rosa Gore, George Hall, Blanche Payson, Kalla Pasha, Billy Engel, George French, Charles Boyle and many others. Christie’s idea is to fill up these casts with the best players available in the entire picture field in Hollywood.
Looks like the Christie’s will be pretty busy chaps in 1927. Though Charlie, the guff taker, hides behind an office desk, he’s a regular and fit mate for the fellow that “everybody calls Al.”
Al Christie — California sportsman, just plain “Al” to his friends.
Collection: Motion Picture Director of Hollywood, February 1927