Al Joy May Have Competition............

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Richard M Roberts
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Al Joy May Have Competition............

Postby Richard M Roberts » Sun Aug 16, 2015 7:28 am

During the last few months, a print came to the Roberts Collection that was a wee bit of a mystery, a lovely, amber-tinted old original of a two-reel comedy that had no recognizable performers, no original opening titles, original intertitles that bore no production company name, listed no actor names when introducing characters, and featured no company logo, no recognizable design, merely a cartoon of a smiling sun at the top. It had a refilmed and replaced opening title from whatever Kodascope or rental library to which it had once belonged that called the film HOW STUPID!, but upon seeing the film, it seemed to be a title commenting more on the film itself rather than something to do with the plot.

We ran it at our regular weekly Movie Night group, where it was received with stony silence and occasional cries of “what the hell is this?” from the group. It was an comedy obviously shot in the early 1920’s, somewhere on the East Coast, at a beachside amusement park of some sort in the first half, then in the second half a wooded area, also beachside, featuring definitely indigenous trees to the Eastern Coast and a few small palm trees that looked fresh from pots. The “star”, was a blond-haired, stocky-set gentleman looking to be in his thirties (he seemed to me to resemble Gary Crosby, son of Bing), sort of playing a romantic sort of comedian, who has a sidekick more comedically dressed as a sort of rube. The star goes to see a fortune teller who tells him of future romantic adventures, while also telling the leading lady of similar future happenings. All involved run around this anonymous amusement park/pier until hero and sidekick et all board a WWI-era Curtiss Seaplane and head to a “desert isle” populated by people in bad blackface headed by a Queen, also in bad blackface, who takes a shine to the hero and wants to make him King. More unfunny antics ensue as Hero makes his escape from Queen and her Guards, and all finally ends well (well…..ends) with Hero and leading lady reunited and escaping the island. Two reels worth, and not a laugh in either reel.

Yet of course, the Silent Comedy Researcher in me wanted to know what in the hell this was, and digging progressed in search of the name of a film comic so dreary as to potentially topple Al Joy from his lofty position as most unfunny comedian of all time. Some time it took, as we had no leads name-wise, and the title HOW STUPID!, though a great title for a silent comedy, appeared to be not only not the title of this particular film, but not one any comedy producer of the 1920’s ever grabbed to adorn one of their product, but in the course of time, the veils parted, and the mystery became clear.

This most unfunny comic proved to be---------drum roll please------Jimmy Callahan!

We’ll give most of you the moment to go----“who?”.

Yes, Jimmy Callahan, who, just like Al Joy became an independent producer/comedy auteur when he formed the Callahan Film Company in 1921 to star in his own series of twenty-six two-reelers to be released by The Film Market, a New York-based states-rights independent distributor. Callahan’s bio states that he is a “well-known comedian who has toured the big-time vaudeville circuits and made a name for himself wherever the two-a-day is known” (anyone have any record of him appearing in vaudeville, I could find none).. Callahan’s leading lady is Florence Dixon, and his second leading lady is listed as Lottie Kendall (she plays the blackface queen). The General Director of the comedies is Ralph D. Whiting, assisted by D. W. MacReynolds and the Cameraman is Charles Downs. The biggest name associated with the series appears to be Tom Bret, the title writer, who was indeed a well-known East Coast title writer who had been busy at Vitagraph and elsewhere in the teens.

The comedies were actually shot in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where Callahan had leased space at the Curtis Airport Grounds and Hangars where he retooled an Airplane Hangar into a movie studio (I knew that Curtis Seaplane would be a clue). The comedies were advertised to be clean and “censor-free” and the first one, JIMMY’S LAST NIGHT OUT, was to be released on Decoration Day of 1921.

However, the story goes a bit south from there, The Film Market, run by it’s President and former film producer Robert W. Priest, was not the longest living of the independent concerns, it seems to have lasted barely a year, and there is little sign that ANY, much less twenty-six Jimmy Callahan Comedies hit the independent market in 1921. Cut to four years later, in 1925, when the Aywon Film Corporation, another small states-righter surviving mostly on reissues and very low-budget B westerns, announces the release of nine Jimmy Callahan comedies, including several titles that had been mentioned in the Film Market press releases like THE LUCKY DOG, THE WONDERFUL WALLOP, and HUCKLEBERRY GULCH, as well as the film that turned out to be the one in my possession: ON THE ISLE OF SAP .

Aywon must have picked up these films in some sort of bankruptcy sale, and it appears that they only ever released nine of them, so it’s most likely that was all that were actually made before Jimmy Callahan went bust. Apparently Callahan did share one thing in common with Harold Lloyd in seriously injuring himself digitally for his art, sometime around July 1st of 1921, while shooting an airplane stunt on his fourth comedy with the working title KING FOR AN HOUR (which may actually be the one released as ON THE ISLE OF SAP), something went wrong that caused Callahan to lose the ends of three of the fingers on his left hand, necessitating the creation of false fingertips for that hand. All similarities to Harold Lloyd, including levels of talent, end there.

As does the trail of Jimmy Callahan, at least that I could find. I leave it to the mafia to fill in any further details they might know about him, but at least we do have a sample of his work extant and preserved for the ages, it will be sitting in the vaults here, not likely to be brought out often, unless someone makes a crack about how lousy the Ham and Bud short I just showed them was, the fools, that’ll learn `em, all be warned that Al Joy may indeed no longer be the lowest depths.



RICHARD M ROBERTS

Gary Johnson
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Re: Al Joy May Have Competition............

Postby Gary Johnson » Mon Aug 17, 2015 1:35 am

So far I have yet to stumble across an Al Joy short in my lifetime. Are there even any in circulation or are they all entombed inside the nuclear bunker that sits on the far end of the Roberts hacienda?

Richard M Roberts
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Re: Al Joy May Have Competition............

Postby Richard M Roberts » Mon Aug 17, 2015 1:47 am

Gary Johnson wrote:So far I have yet to stumble across an Al Joy short in my lifetime. Are there even any in circulation or are they all entombed inside the nuclear bunker that sits on the far end of the Roberts hacienda?



I guess you didn't come to Slapsticon the year we ran THE HELPLESS HELPER, consider yourself lucky.


RICHARD M ROBERTS

Karen Owen
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Re: Al Joy May Have Competition............

Postby Karen Owen » Fri Aug 21, 2015 8:36 pm

I found an on-line book about Atlantic City aviation. Glenn Curtiss first
flew there in 1910 and came back later to set up a seaplane base.
The Navy flew seaplanes from there starting during WWI until 1922.

Richard M Roberts
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Posts: 2895
Joined: Sun May 31, 2009 6:30 pm

Re: Al Joy May Have Competition............

Postby Richard M Roberts » Tue Dec 20, 2016 7:46 pm

You know, you just never know who you will hear from when you put something out on the internet.

When I did this piece on the before-unknown Jimmy Callahan comedy ON THE ISLE OF SAP which came into my collection, I just though it was an interesting piece on an very obscure comedian, but soon after I posted it, I heard from a man named Joe Cook, no relation to the Broadway comic who appeared in RAIN OR SHINE, but definitely related to Jimmy Callahan, who was his Great-Grandfather.

Mr. Cook had come across my article when he googled his Great-Grandpa’s name every once in awhile to see if anything had ever turned up on Jimmy’s film career, and to his happy surprise, he also discovered that one of his G-G’s s films had turned up. To ease my concern that he was not a potential internet troll, he happily shared some family history and info about Jimmy Callahan, as well as several heretofore unpublished photos.

Jimmy Callahan was born James Aloysius Callahan in Philadelphia, PA on June 16, 1888, and apparently his sojourn into the movie business was a complete failure for him. Here is a picture of the Jimmy Callahan Studio in Atlantic City, New Jersey:

Image

And here is a still from another of Jimmy Callahan’s films:


Image


Mr. Cook says he read a newspaper article indicating that several investors in the Jimmy Callahan comedies had Jimmy arrested for fraud when no profits from the films materialized. After his filmmaking debacle, Callahan tried his hand at being a politician, running for State Assembly in New Jersey, but did not win the election. Callahan then moved to Caldwell, New Jersey, where he finally met some success in the real estate and building development business (he was president of Hanover Inc.). He and his wife had three children, and he passed away in 1957.

Mr. Cook had contacted me to see if there was a possibility I could share the film I had with his family, and I was happy to do so. His family had never seen any of Jimmy Callahan’s films, and he had contacted archives in hope of finding one still survived (he said one might exist in Italy, but with Italian subtitles and a completely different title from the American version.

So I was happy to reunite the Cook-Callahan Family with one of their ancestors, and it was very heartening to hear that Jimmy Callahan’s last surviving daughter got the opportunity to see her Father once more just a little while before she passed away last Summer. This is one of the real joys of collecting films, being able to reunite the actual family with a piece of their own past, and it was great to have the opportunity to do it here.

RICHARD M ROBERTS


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