Algie Allmore has one year to prove he's a man in order to wed Harry Lyons' daughter.Algie Allmore has one year to prove he's a man in order to wed Harry Lyons' daughter.Algie Allmore has one year to prove he's a man in order to wed Harry Lyons' daughter.
- Directors
- Stars
Photos
Mary Foy
- Society Dowager
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis film has been preserved by the Library of Congress.
- GoofsOn title card SOLEX 132-5, the caption reads, "ALGIE SHOWS HIS METTAL". The correct spelling of the word is "mettle".
- Quotes
Algie Allmore: Come Jim And See Me Claim My Girl
- Alternate versionsThe version shown on the American Movie Classics channel had a music score composed and performed by Philip C. Carli. It was recorded and post-produced by David Dusman at West End Mastering in Rochester, New York (copyrighted 2000) and ran 13 minutes.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Celluloid Closet (1995)
Featured review
"Algie, the Miner" is one of the better and certainly more intriguing Solax productions. Although, according to Alice Guy expert Alison McMahan (author of the book "Alice Guy Blaché: Lost Visionary of the Cinema" and who provides commentary for the film on the Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers set), it wasn't directed by the world's first female director, instead credited to two male filmmakers, it was supervised by her as were all productions at her studio. Contradictory, the booklet included with the Pioneers set lists Guy as director in its credits for the title. Regardless, it represents a continuation and maturation of the subversion of gender norms with hints of homosexuality seen in some of the best of Guy's oeuvre. In this one, a flamboyantly effeminate city slicker named Algie must prove himself "a man," to a father in order to marry his daughter. So, Algie travels to the gun-toting, horseback-riding, hard-drinking and gold-mining West to kiss and shack up with Big Jim, whereupon the two teach each other something in the ways of manhood. In the end, Algie takes Jim back east with him to prove to the father what a man he's become and be rewarded with that lavender marriage.
Surprising stuff for 1912. While never being more explicit than a rebuked kiss and Algie and Jim's two-bed, one-room shack, it would've presumably been obvious even to sophisticated early-20th-century audiences that with his make-up, styled outfits, stereotypical gestures and initiation into masculine activities and appearances that Algie was coded as queer. Moreover, the humor becomes that this sexually-reversed "Taming of the Shrew" instruction doesn't really make him any more of a heterosexual; it just allows him to superficially pass as one. And, even if not, he's now packing more than merely a dainty pistol that he suggestively smooches.
"Brokeback Mountain" (2005) nearly a century prior would be the obvious comparison here. Algie's handling of his tiny gun also reminds me of such subtle and rather Freudian hints of homosexuality during later heavy Hollywood censorship as Peter Lorre's use of a cane in "The Maltese Falcon" (1941). Such subversion had already been part of Guy's prior films, too. Crossdressing or women playing male parts, such as in "Midwife to the Upper Class" (1902), and the reversal of traditional gender norms, as in "The Consequences of Feminism" (1905), particularly stand out. Besides the subject matter, it also helps that "Algie the Miner" is better acted and features quicker cutting than prior and some later Solax films I've seen. Despite the reputed "Be Natural" sign Guy installed at some point in her studio, as depicted in the documentary "Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché" (2018), the actual acting and direction of the company's productions didn't always reflect that motto. "Algie, the Miner" does in more ways than one.
(Note: Some significant, blotchy decomposition from the surviving 35mm print.)
Surprising stuff for 1912. While never being more explicit than a rebuked kiss and Algie and Jim's two-bed, one-room shack, it would've presumably been obvious even to sophisticated early-20th-century audiences that with his make-up, styled outfits, stereotypical gestures and initiation into masculine activities and appearances that Algie was coded as queer. Moreover, the humor becomes that this sexually-reversed "Taming of the Shrew" instruction doesn't really make him any more of a heterosexual; it just allows him to superficially pass as one. And, even if not, he's now packing more than merely a dainty pistol that he suggestively smooches.
"Brokeback Mountain" (2005) nearly a century prior would be the obvious comparison here. Algie's handling of his tiny gun also reminds me of such subtle and rather Freudian hints of homosexuality during later heavy Hollywood censorship as Peter Lorre's use of a cane in "The Maltese Falcon" (1941). Such subversion had already been part of Guy's prior films, too. Crossdressing or women playing male parts, such as in "Midwife to the Upper Class" (1902), and the reversal of traditional gender norms, as in "The Consequences of Feminism" (1905), particularly stand out. Besides the subject matter, it also helps that "Algie the Miner" is better acted and features quicker cutting than prior and some later Solax films I've seen. Despite the reputed "Be Natural" sign Guy installed at some point in her studio, as depicted in the documentary "Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché" (2018), the actual acting and direction of the company's productions didn't always reflect that motto. "Algie, the Miner" does in more ways than one.
(Note: Some significant, blotchy decomposition from the surviving 35mm print.)
- Cineanalyst
- Mar 7, 2021
- Permalink
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Алджи-золотоискатель
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime10 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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