This very brief film is about a man called Algie Allmore played by Billy Quirk who is a young man who appears as a sissy or pansy and his intended father-in-law wants him to prove he is a man in one year if he wants to marry his daughter. So, Algie heads West dressed up like a funny cowboy with a very tiny pistol and a weird looking western hat. Algie meets up with some very rough and tough cowboys who laugh their heads off just looking at poor Algie. However, Algie gets broken in with his surroundings by finding a gold mine, riding a horse and the ability of knowing what to do with a gun and and is able to stand by himself against all the cowboys. Funny film and enjoyable.
13 Reviews
A strange but enjoyable little film
planktonrules7 June 2007
Warning: Spoilers
This is, like most films of the day, a very short movie. At only ten minutes, it tells the tale of a very wimpy and rather effeminate man's change to manhood. Billy Quirk wants to marry a girl--and considering how he dresses and acts, it's actually a little surprising he wants her. But before he is allowed to marry the girl, he is told to go out and prove his manhood, so he becomes, of all things, a cowboy. Well, despite the impossibility of this task, he quickly proves himself and when he an his new-found friend arrive back home, the family is actually scared of the super-virile Billy, since he's now a tough hombre.
This is an odd film because it really looks as if the producers are trying to say that Billy is gay (based on the way he dresses and because he kisses the first cowboy he meets) but the plot involves him wanting to marry a real live girl! An odd but very watchable film that's good for a few laughs. Some of the other reviews scored the film lower, but for 1912, this was a very good film--as I have seen several hundred very early films and this is better than most.
This is an odd film because it really looks as if the producers are trying to say that Billy is gay (based on the way he dresses and because he kisses the first cowboy he meets) but the plot involves him wanting to marry a real live girl! An odd but very watchable film that's good for a few laughs. Some of the other reviews scored the film lower, but for 1912, this was a very good film--as I have seen several hundred very early films and this is better than most.
Fascinating to interpret
gbill-748771 April 2020
It's interesting to watch this "sissy" get challenged by his prospective father-in-law to prove himself in "becoming a man" by going out west for a year before he can marry the man's daughter, and then to try to interpret it. The guy kisses a couple of cowboys when he meets them at the train station, dresses like a fop, and carries a teeny weeny gun that the "real men" have a big laugh over. As he develops a friendship with one of them, it's hard not to see gay overtones in all this and wonder what producer (and possibly director) Alice Guy-Blaché's intention was.
Is he gay or bisexual and out of conformity to the times going to marry a woman? Or is he just a wimpy guy from the east who has to prove himself to his would-be father-in-law and a bunch of masculine cowboys? Regardless, the characterization is ultimately positive - this effeminate misfit of a man saves another's life in more ways than one and "makes good," rather than not being able to cut it. Is it saying we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and be tolerant to different ways of being a man? Or is it saying that effeminate weaklings can and should be toughened up?
It may be a Rorschach test or another example of the old saying, "we see things not as they are but as we are," especially 108 years later. Anyway, the story is linear and simple which is a little unfortunate, but in the vignette of the male characters (even exaggerated as they are), and in their relationship to one another, it's fascinating.
Is he gay or bisexual and out of conformity to the times going to marry a woman? Or is he just a wimpy guy from the east who has to prove himself to his would-be father-in-law and a bunch of masculine cowboys? Regardless, the characterization is ultimately positive - this effeminate misfit of a man saves another's life in more ways than one and "makes good," rather than not being able to cut it. Is it saying we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and be tolerant to different ways of being a man? Or is it saying that effeminate weaklings can and should be toughened up?
It may be a Rorschach test or another example of the old saying, "we see things not as they are but as we are," especially 108 years later. Anyway, the story is linear and simple which is a little unfortunate, but in the vignette of the male characters (even exaggerated as they are), and in their relationship to one another, it's fascinating.
Lavender Marriage
Cineanalyst8 March 2021
"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.)
Algie, the Miner review
JoeytheBrit23 June 2020
If he hopes to be married, an effeminate young man must prove within a year that he's a man to the man he hopes will be his father-in-law. The sexual politics might be questionable, but Billy Quirk does raise a few laughs as the camp hero who transforms into a tough cowboy hero thanks to the help of a burly miner.
A rare surviving film starring Billy Quirk
AlsExGal28 June 2023
Algie (Billy Quirk) is a high society man, but the father of the girl he wants to marry considers Algie a weakling and not good enough for his daughter. He signs a promise saying that if Algie can prove himself a man inside a year, then Algie can marry his daughter.
Off Algie goes to the west. He tells the ruffians that he meets there his mission, and they put him in the care of "Big Jim", who has Algie bunk with him and teaches him to ride a horse and to prospect. Algie is a quick study, and even fights off a couple of robbers who intrude on the mine, winning Big Jim's respect.
But there is an odd side turn in the plot. Apparently Big Jim is an alcoholic, and Algie is shown tending to Jim when he comes home so drunk he is hallucinating before he passes out. Then Algie tells off anyone who offers Jim a drink when they go to the bar, which makes me wonder - Why would you go to a bar if you intend to not drink? The odd side plot is this rather pro prohibition message before prohibition begins, and so I looked up Alice Guy Blache and the other directors of this film to see if they were pro prohibition, but couldn't find anything on the subject. But there was propaganda in films, even from the beginning, so it could be.
Overall, this film is still studied because, although the leading character is straight, Algie is a very early case of gay stereotyping in film - the loud clothes, his flamboyant gestures, and his tiny toy like gun being just some of those. That is probably why Turner Classic Movies restored it in 2007, and it's a shame they don't have a restoration budget anymore with which to restore more rare gems.
Billy Quirk himself had a rather sad ending. He was a director and actor during the very early days of cinema, but he couldn't cope when films became much longer in the late 1910's and he had a nervous breakdown in 1920. His health continued to deteriorate, and he died in 1926 at only age 53.
Off Algie goes to the west. He tells the ruffians that he meets there his mission, and they put him in the care of "Big Jim", who has Algie bunk with him and teaches him to ride a horse and to prospect. Algie is a quick study, and even fights off a couple of robbers who intrude on the mine, winning Big Jim's respect.
But there is an odd side turn in the plot. Apparently Big Jim is an alcoholic, and Algie is shown tending to Jim when he comes home so drunk he is hallucinating before he passes out. Then Algie tells off anyone who offers Jim a drink when they go to the bar, which makes me wonder - Why would you go to a bar if you intend to not drink? The odd side plot is this rather pro prohibition message before prohibition begins, and so I looked up Alice Guy Blache and the other directors of this film to see if they were pro prohibition, but couldn't find anything on the subject. But there was propaganda in films, even from the beginning, so it could be.
Overall, this film is still studied because, although the leading character is straight, Algie is a very early case of gay stereotyping in film - the loud clothes, his flamboyant gestures, and his tiny toy like gun being just some of those. That is probably why Turner Classic Movies restored it in 2007, and it's a shame they don't have a restoration budget anymore with which to restore more rare gems.
Billy Quirk himself had a rather sad ending. He was a director and actor during the very early days of cinema, but he couldn't cope when films became much longer in the late 1910's and he had a nervous breakdown in 1920. His health continued to deteriorate, and he died in 1926 at only age 53.
Pretty bad but important in terms of gay representation
preppy-35 June 2007
Warning: Spoilers
DEFINITE SPOILERS!!!! Algie (a VERY effeminate man) must prove his manhood to marry the daughter of a rich man. To prove this he goes out west and (after kissing two men on the cheek) is "taught" by Big Jim on how to be a man. This leads to utterly predictable "comedy". It seems hopeless but then Algie proves himself by saving Jim from being robbed and he goes home to marry his girlfriend.
The story is silly, the comedy painful and the acting is WAY over the top even for a silent movie. But, in terms of gay characters, this is important. It's one of the first representations of a gay character on screen and (even though it's negative) it is historically important. Also Algie DOES prove himself to be a man at the end. The extremely effeminate mannerisms that Algie shows may offend some gay viewers, but it really shouldn't. It's just a sign of its time.
The story is silly, the comedy painful and the acting is WAY over the top even for a silent movie. But, in terms of gay characters, this is important. It's one of the first representations of a gay character on screen and (even though it's negative) it is historically important. Also Algie DOES prove himself to be a man at the end. The extremely effeminate mannerisms that Algie shows may offend some gay viewers, but it really shouldn't. It's just a sign of its time.
An Interesting One-Reeler
FerdinandVonGalitzien17 August 2009
During summertime, German aristocrats are lazier than ever, certainly in comparison with the rest of the year, natürlich. Laziness is unfailingly a part of the almost human aristocratic nature so to spare any extra effort during these hot and terrible times is important.
Having in mind this important seasonal reason, last night was screened at the Schloss theatre a short film, namely "Algie, The Miner", a perfect film for a small soirée due to its brief running time that can be enjoyed in "petit comité" by any German aristocrat. This allows time to be spent on other trifling things while appreciating this archaeological oeuvre that was recently restored by some hard-working longhaired youngsters beyond the Atlantic sea.
This short film was directed by the frenchified woman film pioneer Dame Alice Guy-Blaché in the silent year of 1912, and though it is somewhat primitive, it has interesting aspects as, for example, different settings ( filmed with a static camera, so don't ask the impossible... ) but with a perfect film continuity. It is the story of a mild man who must show he has the right stuff if he wants to gain the favour of his father-in-law and consequently be worthy of the hand of his daughter, showing in this way to the whole silent world his newly gained masculinity. Dame Guy-Blaché accepts the terms of that ancient and conservative era but in an interesting way.
Careful bourgeoisie settings, coarse taverns in the wild West, different landscapes and a combination of comedy, adventure and quaint human conduct and it all wraps up in tens minutes, an interesting one-reeler that is perfect to be enjoyed during the lazy summertime.
And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must lay mines around the Schloss in order to keep out the terrible tourist hordes.
Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/
Having in mind this important seasonal reason, last night was screened at the Schloss theatre a short film, namely "Algie, The Miner", a perfect film for a small soirée due to its brief running time that can be enjoyed in "petit comité" by any German aristocrat. This allows time to be spent on other trifling things while appreciating this archaeological oeuvre that was recently restored by some hard-working longhaired youngsters beyond the Atlantic sea.
This short film was directed by the frenchified woman film pioneer Dame Alice Guy-Blaché in the silent year of 1912, and though it is somewhat primitive, it has interesting aspects as, for example, different settings ( filmed with a static camera, so don't ask the impossible... ) but with a perfect film continuity. It is the story of a mild man who must show he has the right stuff if he wants to gain the favour of his father-in-law and consequently be worthy of the hand of his daughter, showing in this way to the whole silent world his newly gained masculinity. Dame Guy-Blaché accepts the terms of that ancient and conservative era but in an interesting way.
Careful bourgeoisie settings, coarse taverns in the wild West, different landscapes and a combination of comedy, adventure and quaint human conduct and it all wraps up in tens minutes, an interesting one-reeler that is perfect to be enjoyed during the lazy summertime.
And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must lay mines around the Schloss in order to keep out the terrible tourist hordes.
Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com/
Humorous silent comedy with Billy Quirk
mrb198014 June 2021
Warning: Spoilers
I don't know if the term "comedy genius" was even in existence in 1912, but it's obvious Billy Quirk understood the then-new medium of film. ALGIE THE MINER was made at the height of Quirk's popularity and it showcases his talents quite well.
Sissy-man Algie (Quirk) really wants to marry his girlfriend, but her father refuses to allow his permission until Algie "becomes a man", and he gives Algie one year to do so. Algie takes a train to mining country, becomes a tough guy and earns the respect of the hardened miners. His triumphant return east to claim his girl is fascinating and truly funny.
Quirk was at his career peak when this film was made, and it's easy to see why. He was a master of silent, physical comedy and stole the show in almost every film he made during this period. Quirk's star burned out quite quickly, and by the 1920s he was a has-been who acted in bit parts. His early death at age 53 in 1926 was really a shame, because there's no telling what he may have accomplished if he'd lived longer.
Sissy-man Algie (Quirk) really wants to marry his girlfriend, but her father refuses to allow his permission until Algie "becomes a man", and he gives Algie one year to do so. Algie takes a train to mining country, becomes a tough guy and earns the respect of the hardened miners. His triumphant return east to claim his girl is fascinating and truly funny.
Quirk was at his career peak when this film was made, and it's easy to see why. He was a master of silent, physical comedy and stole the show in almost every film he made during this period. Quirk's star burned out quite quickly, and by the 1920s he was a has-been who acted in bit parts. His early death at age 53 in 1926 was really a shame, because there's no telling what he may have accomplished if he'd lived longer.
It's a tough watch
Horst_In_Translation11 September 2017
Warning: Spoilers
"Algie, the Miner" is an American 10-minute short from 1912, so this one already made it past the 100-year-mark and as such it is of course a black-and-white silent film. Even if you are probably not too familiar with the names of director Edward Warren and his cast here, then let me assure you that this is because the time passed ant not because of lack of activity as there are many people who are part of this film that had really prolific careers in the first half the 20th century. But despite this experience, this was not a good watch here. Making a film that successfully combines the genres comedy and western (and romance) is already pretty difficult by definition and back then the means certainly weren't there yet. The lack of a sufficient amount of intertitles is another big problem as I found it fairly difficult to understand what was going on. The lead actor here (Billie Quirk) had a bit of a Buster Keaton thing going for him I guess. All in all, not a disastrous watch, but still on a level where I would only recommend it to the very biggest silent fans. And even those won't be missing too much if they decide to skip this one here. I give it a thumbs-down.
Decent Silent
Michael_Elliott27 February 2008
Algie, the Miner (1912)
** (out of 4)
This comedy short was shown on TCM a several weeks back to highlight gay folks in early Hollywood. The title character in this short (and various other films shown) isn't out and out gay but is shown (in the writer's words) as a "sissy". Algie wants to marry a woman but her father says no because the young man is too much of a sissy but the father tells Algie that he can marry the daughter if he turns himself into a man within one year. The writer of the book and the one who introduced the film makes a lot of examples of why this character is gay but the film itself really isn't anything special as there are no laughs anywhere to be had.
** (out of 4)
This comedy short was shown on TCM a several weeks back to highlight gay folks in early Hollywood. The title character in this short (and various other films shown) isn't out and out gay but is shown (in the writer's words) as a "sissy". Algie wants to marry a woman but her father says no because the young man is too much of a sissy but the father tells Algie that he can marry the daughter if he turns himself into a man within one year. The writer of the book and the one who introduced the film makes a lot of examples of why this character is gay but the film itself really isn't anything special as there are no laughs anywhere to be had.
none so queer as folk
kekseksa20 August 2018
The idea of the Wild West being a cure for homosexuality - and the film is unusually frank for the time in that respect - is not exactly very advanced but it is entirely typical of the Solax mix of quite cever ideas with rather crude plot development. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is not the way the West reforms the cissy but the reverse - the way the cissy beings an element of "caring" into the life of the Wild West in his motherly concern for Big Jim.
The film was also clearly an influence on one of Buster Keaton's most underestimated films Go West (1925). Not only does this feature the same notion of the "little gun" to indicate inferior manhood but also plays quite interestingly with the element of "caring" (Big Jim replaced by the cow) and uncertain sexuality (Keaton coems within an ace of choosing the cow in preference to the girl in a very neat double-take at the end of the film).
The film was also clearly an influence on one of Buster Keaton's most underestimated films Go West (1925). Not only does this feature the same notion of the "little gun" to indicate inferior manhood but also plays quite interestingly with the element of "caring" (Big Jim replaced by the cow) and uncertain sexuality (Keaton coems within an ace of choosing the cow in preference to the girl in a very neat double-take at the end of the film).
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