What Kind of a Fellow Is — Christie? (1918) 🇺🇸

Being a glance at the real human side of the big men of the picture game caught in action

by William A. Johnston

Al E. Christie might easily be termed a “pioneer” of the film industry, but that word is tabooed in this series. However, he is a real old timer just the same, commencing the production of comedies over in Bayonne, N. J., when David Horsley first turned his attention to the production of pictures. That was so long ago that to give the date would be to betray Al’s age.

He commenced his rapid climb to fame at Universal just about four and a half years ago — perhaps five, when he took hold of Eddie Lyons and Lee Moran and made comedies for the Nestor brand. Hundreds of these he produced. We remember once that a story was sent out stating that he had passed the three hundred mark. He must have doubled this record before he finally gently broke the ties that bound him to Universal, and with his brother, Charles, inaugurated the Christie Film Company to produce comedies for the independent market.

Again in so doing did he prove himself the pioneer — that word again. It required a great deal of courage to put one-reel comedies on the state rights market, but the deed was done and today the thousand-foot lengths of comedy, embellished by the prettiest little ladies on the Pacific Coast, are making a big splash in the picture business.

“The prettiest little ladies on the Pacific Coast,” as applied to the results of Mr. Christie’s selections may make Mack Sennett jealous. It has been a toss up for a long time which is the better connoisseur of feminine pulchritude. Mack Sennett’s girls say that he is. Al Christie’s girls say that he is. And no one likes to contradict the ladies.

However, we have seen with our own eyes. Witness the amount of loveliness that Al has uncovered to the waiting film fans of the world. There are Betty Compson, Ethel Lynne, Eleanor Field, Dorothy Dane, not forgetting Victoria Forde, who acted as the foil of Eddie and Lee these years since. Even Mr. Sennett would have a difficult time matching any one of these.

The casual visitor to the Christie studio might be afraid of approaching Mr. Christie at close quarters. It may be a characteristic peculiar to the Scotch-Canadian, but we were totally unprepared for any such characteristic when we first saw him direct. He looked very ferocious and forbidding standing behind the camera and smashing his straw hat. When he smashed one he procured another and jumped on it. Charles Christie says that the bill for each comedy is usually augmented by the price of several of the best Los Angeles straws.

But this is only one of Al’s little touches. His treatment of hats is not indicative of his attitude toward his fellow men. He takes his comedy directing, his comedy writing and his comedy producing as a serious business which, they tell us, is the only way to take it. He works hard and works his people hard, which has been said of others too, but the inevitable conclusion to reach after such a statement is that his people respect him.

In the evening, or at such time when the day’s work is done you might find Mr. Christie sitting in the front row of the Vernon A. C, somewhere between Tom Ince and Wally Reid, cheering the battlers in the ring, or right next door at the Vernon C. C, in the midst of all Los Angeles studio folk. Probably there is not a more popular man than Christie on the slopes of the Pacific Coast.

And by the way wasn’t Christie the first comedy producer to take his company to the beach and put his pretty girls in pretty bathing suits?

And a last word: He’s Scotch! Who said the Scotch have no sense of humor?

What about Harry Lauder and — Al Christie?

Hoot, mon! ye said somethin’.

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Illustration by: Harry Palmer (Harry Samuel Palmer) (1882–1955)

Collection: Motion Picture News, June 1918