The Adventures of Algy (Beaumont Smith, 1925) Beaumont Smith's Productions, wr. Beaumont Smith, dp Lacey Percival, Frank Stewart, Syd Taylor, Charles Barton; Claude Dampier (Algernon Allison), Bathie Stuart (Kiwi McGill), Eric Harrison, Billie Carlyle, George Chalmers, Lester Brown, Eric Yates, Beaumont Smith, Hilda Attenboro, Verna Blain; 6500 ft
Algy is a direct successor to the English 'silly ass' played by Claude Dampier in Hullo Marmaduke (1924). Algy is tricked by a dastardly cousin into inheriting a barren stretch of land in New Zealand instead of a rich sheep station. He falls in love with a neighbour, Kiwi McGill, and later meets her again in Sydney, where she is dancing in a stage show to raise money to help her impoverished father. When he returns to New Zealand, Algy strikes oil on his property; both he and the McGills become rich and Algy and Kiwi are married.
The film, most of which survives today, reveals a heavy reliance on titles to propel the insubstantial plot along, and frequently the images are little more than illustrations for the printed text. The story is padded out to feature length by a tour of New Zealand's scenic highlights, and by two dance sequences, one in a Maori village and another on the stage of a Sydney theatre. The star of both dance items was a young New Zealand actress, Bathie Stuart, making her first feature film appearance.
The New Zealand scenes were shot during the first months of 1925, followed by shooting in Sydney. Smith submitted the film for censor-screening in mid-June, and it opened strongly at the Lyceum and Lyric Wintergarden Theatres, Sydney, on 20 June. Pike & Cooper: 127.
Garry Gillard | New: 28 November, 2012 | Now: 24 November, 2019