''The Adventures of Algy'' is a 1925 Australian film comedy from director

Beaumont Smith Frank Beaumont "Beau" Smith (15 August 1885 – 2 January 1950), was an Australian film director, producer and exhibitor, best known for making low-budget comedies. Smith made his first film in 1917, '' Our Friends, the Hayseeds''. He went on t ...

about a " silly ass" Englishman (

Claude Dampier Claude Dampier (born Claud Conolly Cowan; 23 November 1878 – 1 January 1955) was an English film actor and popular character comedian in the early 20th century. Life He was born in Clapham, South London as Claud Conolly Cowan.Richard Anthony ...

) who inherits a sheep station in New Zealand. It is an unofficial follow up to ''

Hullo Marmaduke ''Hullo Marmaduke'' is a 1924 Australian film comedy drama from director Beaumont Smith about a naive Englishman (Claude Dampier) who comes to Australia as a remittance man. It is considered a lost film. Plot Marmaduke (Claude Dampier) is the yo ...

'' (1924), which also starred Dampier. Unlike most of Smith's silent films, most of the movie survives today.

Plot

Algy (Claude Dampier) is an Englishman who travels to New Zealand to claim a sheep station he has inherited. He falls in love with a neighbour, Kiwi McHill ( Bathie Stuart), then travels to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. He runs into Kiwi again, using dances she has learned from her

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

friends in a

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

revue. When he returns to New Zealand he strikes

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

on his farm and he and Kiwi are married.

Cast

as Algernon Allison * Bathie Stuart as Kiwi McGill *Eric Harrison as Murray Watson *Billie Carlyle as Mollie Moore *George Chalmers as John McGill *Lester Brown as stage manager *Eric Yates *

*Hilda Attenboro *Verna Blain

Production

''The Adventures of Algy'' was shot on location in New Zealand and Sydney during the early part of 1925. New Zealand locations included Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Taranaki, and Rotarua (notably the hot springs). Exterior locations in Sydney included Martin Place, Circular Quay, Watson's Bay Gap, the Palace Theatre, and Sydney Harbour (aboard the ferry Kubu). The scene at the Gap focused on a sensational aspect of the story whereby a young girl attempts to throw herself over the cliff. Interior filming took place at

Australasian Films Australasian Films, full name Union Theatres and Australasian Films, was an Australian film distribution and production company formed in 1913 that was wound up in the 1930s to merge into Greater Union. The Union Theatres and Australasian Films d ...

' Rushcutters Bay studio. As with Smith and Dampier's previous film, ''Hullo Marmaduke'', ''The Adventures of Algy'' was given a joint world premiere at Sydney's Lyric Wintergarden and Lyceum theatres. Dampier later married his co-star, Billie Carlyle.

Reception

Reviews for the film were generally positive. Film writers Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper wrote that:

The film... 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.Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, ''Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production'', Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 124.

Smith was becoming exhausted with film production and concentrated on distribution and exhibition instead over the next eight years. He returned to directing with '' The Hayseeds'' (1933).

References

External links

Adventures of Algy''
in the

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

''The Adventures of Algy''
at the

National Film and Sound Archive The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national co ...

''The Adventures of Algy''
at the New Zealand Feature Project {{DEFAULTSORT:Adventures Of Algy, The 1925 films Australian comedy films Australian silent feature films Films directed by Beaumont Smith Australian black-and-white films 1926 comedy films 1926 films American black-and-white films American silent feature films 1925 comedy films Silent American comedy films 1920s American films