John G. “Jack” Blystone.
The Starring Years
PRODUCTION OFFICIALLY BEGAN AT L-KO ON JULY 14, 1914. IT DOES NOT appear that Alice Howell actually began her own work at L-Ko until January 1915. Alice’s first major L-Ko comedy, a two-reeler titled The Bath House Tragedy, was reported as filming in August 1915, but not released until October 10, 1915.
That L-Ko production was directed, as would be many others, by John G. “Jack” Blystone, who was immediately paired with Alice Howell, and who seemed best able to appreciate and hone her comedic talents.
A good-looking young man, with brown hair and green eyes, John G. [Gilman] “Jack” Blystone (1892–1938) moved from his home state of Wisconsin to Los Angeles in 1911, taking various odd jobs until promoted to director at Universal in 1914. He proved to be a good, commercial director, responsible for the Buster Keaton vehicle Our Hospitality (1923), El Brendel’s Mr. Lemon of Orange (1931), seven Tom Mix Westerns between 1924 and 1926, and the 1930 remake of Tol’able David. He was not directing Laurel and Hardy while George Stevens, who married Alice Howell’s daughter, Yvonne, was photographing them. But Blystone did direct the pair in the last year of his life in two of their best features, Swiss Miss and Block-Heads, both released in 1938.
The nominal star of the L-Ko comedies was Billie Ritchie (1878–1921), who, like Chaplin, had learned his craft with the Fred Karno music-hall troupe and, like Chaplin, favored a tramp costume. But there the similarity ended, as Ritchie appears, from a modern perspective, to have lacked the comic genius and, perhaps more important, the commercial potential that Chaplin embraced.1 That being said, there is certainly strong evidence to support an argument that Chaplin and Ritchie had very different styles of comedy. As Jon Burrows has written, “Certainly, the posthumous image of Billie Ritchie as a poor man’s Chaplin who hung on to his younger compatriot’s coat-tails and anxiously followed his every move is not one that would have been easily recognized by industry observers in the 1910s.”2
Two other male comedians with L-Ko also have Chaplin connections. Hank Mann (1886–1971) had worked with Chaplin at the Sennett Studios and is sometimes credited with the concept of the Keystone Cops; he later worked with Chaplin on City Lights (1931) and The Great Dictator (1940). Henry Bergman (1868–1946) began his screen career at L-Ko, and working with Lehrman must have been to his advantage, as within less than two years, he was a regular member of Chaplin’s stock company and continued to work with him long into the sound era.
As Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle demonstrated, no comedy company was complete without a stereotypical fat guy. At L-Ko, it was Fatty Voss (1886–1917), who was certainly no Arbuckle but matched him, and then some, in terms of girth. He died of heart disease at an early age, and doubtless the antics he was required to perform at L-Ko reduced his life span.
There were at least three other regular female members of the L-Ko Company, none of whom had careers extending beyond the 1910s and none of whom displayed any real potential for comedy. Peggy Pearce (1894–1975) was another veteran of the Mack Sennett company, and she was joined by Louise Orth (1893–?) and Gertrude Selby (1890–1975), who had previously worked in vaudeville.
It was at L-Ko that Alice Howell’s eccentric costume and grotesque physical appearance developed, and she showed her true potential as a unique slapstick comedienne, although certainly she had utilized the “scrub lady” characterization at Keystone. “Slob stuff” is how Alice Howell’s characterizations were described within the industry, and as Photoplay noted in 1917, “Alice Howell is probably the most consistent player of these roles, which constitute a sort of feminine Chaplin characterization.”3 Also, working closely with Blystone, Alice “doped out” each of her films, noting potential physical gags that might be inserted into the action. She might wear a wire for a stunt or fall down a flight of stairs. General roughhousing was an integral part of an Alice Howell comedy at L-Ko. Her childhood years, as already noted, had been spent playing basketball, swimming, or participating in athletics, and those activities would stand her in good stead at the studio. “No mere comedian has anything on Alice when it comes to stunts,” reported the British fan magazine Pictures and the Picturegoer. “Game as a world’s champion, Alice gives and takes with the best athletes in the studio.”4 (The article in a British magazine and its title, “The Funniest Woman in Pictures,” is indicative of Alice Howell’s international success and the respect and admiration in which she was held.)
At L-Ko circa 1916: Alice Howell, out of make-up, and sitting in the boss’s chair, with “Fatty” Voss at her feet, and Dan Russell seated on the desk with his female admirers.
The scrub lady was one of Alice’s most popular characterizations, and it was in such a role, in Cupid and the Scrub Lady, that she would seem to have come to stardom at L-Ko. Released on November 17, 1915, the comedy was described by Motion Picture News (November 6, 1915) as “one of the best of recent Lehrman comedies, with Alice Howell appearing as the janitress of an office building. Miss Howell gets a lot of farcical fun from her role, creating most of the laughs in the picture.”
From this point on, Alice Howell is no longer supporting Billie Ritchie or others, but is now a full-fledged L-Ko star. With Lizzie’s Shattered Dreams, a one-reel comedy, released on December 12, 1915, Motion Picture News (December 11, 1915) announced, “Alice Howell is the lead.” She was not only an L-Ko star, but also a reliable, dependable one. In From Beanery to Billions, released on December 22, 1915, Motion Picture News (December 25, 1915) reported, “Alice Howell appears as the wife and cuts a ludicrous figure, carrying the picture despite occasional vulgarity.”
The vulgarity reported here was, in reality, far from occasional and appears to have been a recurrent theme in the L-Ko comedies. The trade papers constantly complained of the crudity and vulgarity of the comedies, which, more often than not, were burlesques of Victorian melodramas. A typical example is Dad’s Dollars and Dirty Doings, released on February 2, 1916, in which Alice is the stereotypical farm girl lured away to the big city. If the burlesque could take place in, say, a Turkish bathhouse, as in The Bath House Tragedy, released on October 10, 1915, there was even more potential for vulgarity.
“A good low comedy offering” is the description in the Moving Picture World (March 20, 1915) of Rough but Romantic, released on March 17, 1915, and that is probably the best critique that any L-Ko comedy could expect.
On May 10, 1916, L-Ko released its first three-reel comedy, The Great Smash, with Alice starring opposite Raymond Griffith (1890–1957), who was to make a name for himself in the 1920s with a number of sophisticated comedy features—far removed from the L-Ko output—and become a studio executive with the advent of sound. Alice is cast as Romantic Rosie, the lighthouse keeper’s daughter, and the high point of the film is a chase involving a steam engine and an automobile, together with land and harbor police. At the conclusion, the steam engine is blown up with the use of what was described as a practically perfect miniature. In the opinion of Peter Milne in Motion Picture News (May 20, 1916), it was “candidly the best L-Ko we have seen.” And in an oblique reference to its leading lady and her make-up, the reviewer continued, “Griffith, with only a moustache as makeup, creates a laugh with every move. He is a real comedian, finished and with a keen sense for that which is humorous.” In its review, Moving Picture World (May 13, 1916) noted the importance of the film, commenting,
This three-reel offering is very successful for a purely comic production. It is a big step in advance for this type of eccentric comedies, in which the characters are really “caricatures” with human impulses of an exaggerated sort…. The offering is one that will appeal to all observers and shows what can be done by sticking to straight humorous action…. An excellent comic number.
The chase is, of course, a fundamental element—the staple—of so many silent comedies, dating back to American Biograph and much appreciated by Mack Sennett, and it is a frequent feature of the L-Ko productions. If the chase is the essence of American silent comedy, then it is also the essence of the Alice Howell comedies. Pirates of the Air, released on June 28, 1916, was unusual in that its leading lady was involved in an airplane chase, with Alice cutting “a comical figure,” according to Peter Milne in Motion Picture News (July 8, 1916). That the two airplanes were suspended in a studio with a moving background of clouds did not apparently hurt the burlesque aspects of the production.
Mack Sennett explained his approach to comedy in 1915, and L-Ko adopted the same concept: “The secret of the successful film comedy lies in a not-too-clamorous getaway and a whirlwind finish. In other words, speed, constantly increasing speed, right up to the climax of the picture, with everybody going on ‘high’ must be an axiom with the producer.”5
So successful were the L-Ko comedies in general and those starring Alice Howell in particular, that in July 1916, the company took over the entire former Universal plant in Hollywood. Five comedy companies were at work, headed by the Howell-Blystone unit. That same month marked a dramatic change in management at L-Ko with Lehrman’s severing his connection with the company that bore his name and which he had founded, and later in 1916, his joining William Fox Productions. John G. “Jack” Blystone was named director-general of L-Ko and Lehrman’s creative successor.
In August 1916, L-Ko took out advertising in the trade papers to promote Alice Howell as “the Most Fearless, Most Remarkable Woman on the Screen”:
Her work is just one convulsion after another—Her make-ups are extraordinary—her stunts are without doubt the craziest ever shown on the screen. Possessed of beauty of face and figure, equipped with a style of comedy that has never been equaled, Alice Howell’s name in front of any Theatre means capacity business profit, prestige and popularity, plus convulsions to the fans.6
The reference to Alice Howell’s being “the Most Fearless” of women in film is quite remarkable, and perhaps somewhat questionable in that at the same time a number of female stars were prominent in serials, performing stunts every bit as daring as those by Alice Howell. However, perhaps those serial queens, including Helen Gibson, Helen Holmes, Ruth Roland, and Pearl White, had the advantage of stunt doubles, whereas Alice Howell had none.
In trade paper advertising in December 1916, L-Ko was again promoting Alice Howell, coupling her name with Blystone as “Creators of the Great Comedy Sensations of All Time.” According to L-Ko, Alice was “the funniest Woman That Ever Appeared in Film Comedies—Anywhere, Any Time. Alice Howell and her work in L-Ko Komedies under the personal direction of Mr. Blystone have made both herself and L-Ko Komedies famous throughout the entire world.”7
The Alice Howell comedies were screened across the United States, with small-town newspapers hard-pressed to find adequate superlatives. She was “the Bundle of Eccentricity” to some; the Olean (NY) Times Herald (September 1, 1917) wrote, “Miss Howell is considered one of the foremost comediennes of the present day,” while the Oneonta (NY) Star (December 7, 1916) went even further, describing her as “the Funniest Girl on Earth.” The titles of the Alice Howell films were really not particularly relevant. They were often ignored completely in advertising, with the productions billed simply as “an ALICE HOWELL Comedy.”
Researching Alice Howell and her career, one is very much aware that she is far better than the material with which she has to work. The above advertising strongly supports such a view.
In January 1917, it was reported that Dick Smith was working for L-Ko as the director of a new comedy unit featuring Sammy Burns, a low comedian who worked for a number of minor comedy companies in the 1910s. Smith had appeared in some earlier L-Ko productions, but received no publicity. Most contemporary publicity stories on Alice Howell make no reference to her having a husband, and in at least one she refers only to the ill health of one of her family members as the reason for the initial trip to California—the relationship of the family member to her does not merit a mention.
The first half of 1917 is remarkable for its sudden lack of Alice Howell comedies. The reason perhaps becomes clear in May of that year, when L-Ko president Julius Stern announced the creation of a new brand to be known as Howl Comedies, to star Alice Howell under John G. “Jack” Blystone’s direction. Picture-Play (August 1917) noted the inability of the producers “to refrain from a jest even in Miss Howell’s name.” As Stern explained,
Women have demonstrated on the stage that they can be just as funny as the comedians of musical comedy, burlesque, vaudeville or farce. We propose to establish Miss Howell as a comedy star upon the screen, and we have faith in our determination. Miss Howell has “made good” as L-Ko’s leading comedienne and we are convinced that she will duplicate her past success as star of her own series.8
The name “Howl” also, of course, allowed for such plays on words as “You’ll Howl at Howell” or “Every Howell a Howl.” Such alliteration is, unfortunately, exemplary of the humor the Stern brothers espoused.
Three two-reel comedies had already been produced when it was decided by Julius Stern to rename Howl Comedies as Century Comedies. The cinematographer on the Century Comedies, who later photographed Alice Howell at Universal, was Jerry Ash, a studious-looking individual who favored a pair of pince-nez eyeglasses.9 Not quite as important as Ash but certainly more appealing is Fritzie the Dog, who appears in a number of the Alice Howell comedies, and should be, but isn’t, every bit as famous as Teddy, the Mack Sennett dog.
Balloonatics, in which Alice spends most of her screen time in either a balloon or an airplane, was the first Century Comedy to be filmed and the first to be screened for the trade paper critics. “A good comedy thriller,” reported Motion Picture News (July 14, 1917). “Miss Howell is seen to an unusually good advantage.” Ben H. Grimm in the Moving Picture World (July 7, 1917) wrote, “Alice Howell … pulls stuff in this one that stamps her one of the leaders in her particular line. She is a hard and serious worker, and it is her seriousness under ludicrous circumstances that score many of the laughs.” Even the fan magazines paid attention, with Motion Picture Magazine (March 1917) describing the production as “two side-splitting reels of slapstick,” and continuing, “No matter how ‘high-brow’ you may be, you’ll have to laugh at Alice’s unique method of scrubbing the floor.”
Balloonatics opened in pre-release at New York’s Strand Theatre in May 1917.
The film appears to have been in production as early as December 1916, and there is a news story from that month, sounding very much like a publicity stunt, in which it is claimed that a hot-air balloon broke away from its mooring and flew for some five miles with Alice alone in its basket.
Much was made of Century’s fourth production, Her Bareback Career, released on December 1, 1917, which marked Alice Howell’s first (and in all probability last) use of the circus as a location. Motography explained:
Until [Her Bareback Career] was created Miss Howell had never tackled any out and out “circus stunts” in real circus surroundings, and it is believed that never before upon the screen has any woman so callously disregarded the laws of gravity and the heels of an ill-tempered horse. She has soared to the circus-peak on invisible wire, swung through space on swaying handle bars and performed aerial “stunts” that woman has never before attempted.
Reading of Alice Howell in Her Bareback Career, it is not impossible to acknowledge what Chaplin did in a similar environment just over a decade later in 1928’s The Circus.
Surprisingly, the Century Comedies were not released by Universal but rather offered by the Stern Brothers for states’ rights distribution. In July 1917, exclusive rights to the series in the U.S. and Canada were acquired by Longacre Distributing Company, and the first three were trade shown at New York’s Broadway Theatre on July 27, 1917. The plan was for Longacre to release twelve Century Comedies a year, with the Stern Brothers guaranteeing at least ten upfront. The New York Herald-Tribune (August 26, 1917) reported that Longacre was establishing exchanges throughout the country. In New York, the comedies were featured at the Loew’s theatres, with subway stations decorated with one-sheet posters announcing that “Alice Howell is coming to New York.”
On location at Little Bear Lake (later known as Lake Arrowhead) in 1918. Alice Howell is kneeling with husband Dick Smith to the right with his hands in his pockets. Fritzie the dog is held by Syd Ott. Others unidentified.
The deal with Longacre was relatively short-lived, and in March 1918, Universal announced that it was to release the Century Comedy brand. In May of that year, the trade papers reported that Alice Howell was to appear in one Century Comedy a month on the Universal program, with the short taking the place of the usual L-Ko comedy for that week.
It is obvious that more time and effort was being put into the production of the Century Comedies than had been spent on the L-Ko offerings. For one unidentified comedy with the working title of The Worshippers of the Cuckoo Clock, a lighthouse was built near Long Beach, California, and destroyed by explosion in the final scene. At the same time, production also seems remarkably sluggish, with only eighteen Alice Howell Century Comedies released over a two-year period. It is also obvious that Universal’s Carl Laemmle was, for whatever reason, becoming disenchanted with Alice Howell. In May 1918, he asked Abe and Julius Stern to find “a female Charlie Chaplin,” completely ignoring the fact that the Stern Brothers already had a female Charlie Chaplin under contract in the form of Alice Howell. The Stern Brothers also had another eccentric comedienne, Gale Henry, under contract—she had joined L-Ko in November 1917—and it must have been galling for Alice not only to hear of Carl Laemmle’s request but also to know that she had competition at the studio.
Perhaps in an effort to find favor with the management, Alice Howell returned to the roughhouse comedy of L-Ko with Hey, Doctor!, released on July 31, 1918. She may have been the original screen scrub lady, but there was competition, with Marie Dressler set to return to the screen as a scrub lady and Vivian Martin about to star in The Littlest Scrub Lady (released in 1918 as Mirandy Smiles). Later, Gale Henry was also to adopt the Alice Howell characterization in L-Ko’s Her Honor, the Scrub Lady, released in July 1919.
It was the end of an era for Alice Howell when John G. “Jack” Blystone resigned from L-Ko in December 1918, joining his former boss, Henry “Pathe” Lehrman, and the Sunshine Comedies company at Fox. Why Alice did not go with her new director and mentor remains a mystery, particularly as his new employer was also her “old” employer, the man who made her a star. Could unrealistic financial demands have played a part or could Alice Howell have become temperamental? Neither seems likely, with one story describing her as “docile and domestic when off duty,”10 and another, “a modest sort of person.”11 As Yvonne Stevens points out, her mother did not even bother to view the finished films; she might add a little bit of comedy “business” or make suggestions as to how the script could be improved, but basically, she always followed direction.
Whatever emotional problems Alice Howell may have faced at home with Dick Smith, she never brought them to the studio. She was reported as never allowing herself to get “low in mind,” and would often make the camera crew laugh during rehearsals. From a modern perspective, the most obvious reason behind the breakup would be an emotional one. The latter would seem closest to the truth. Yvonne Stevens claimed that Blystone was “crazy” about her mother—“She was so beautiful, she really was, and she had a gorgeous figure”—but rejects the notion of an affair. Asked if Blystone could have wanted an affair and been rejected, Yvonne Stevens replied, “Of course.”12
There is another reason why an affair might have been unlikely. In July 1915, Blystone had married Gwendolyn Davis, who like him had grown up in Eau Clair, Wisconsin. It was a happy marriage, and the couple had two daughters. Would he have risked breaking up his marriage for a relationship with his leading lady? It is perhaps unlikely.
Certainly, as daughter Yvonne points out, her mother was very much aware of how other leading ladies became stars:
If they wanted to be that, they’d sleep with the producer or the director. They were show business people. Whoever you worked with two weeks, you owned ’em. That was not in her book at all. She was talented, and they wanted what she had on the screen, not in the bed.13
In sorrow, guilt, or frustration, Blystone left Alice Howell and L-Ko. Alice Howell was now alone at a company that did not seem to know what to do with her. Century Comedies that had once been starring vehicles for her were now featuring animals in such productions as Loony Lions and Monkey Business (1919). The Stern Brothers had discovered that lions and monkeys were easier to handle and demanded lesser salaries that human players. Mack Sennett had told the Dramatic Mirror (March 10, 1917) that “you can’t run a motion picture studio like an army or an automobile factory.” Unfortunately, one has the notion that the Stern Brothers very much believed that one could. By November 1919, L-Ko comedies had disappeared from Universal’s release schedule, succeeded by Rainbow Comedies. Century Comedies did continue into the 1920s, with many starring Baby Peggy, and with Dick Smith often involved in the production in one capacity or another. It was all over for L-Ko, and it was all over for Alice Howell. Nobody liked the Stern Brothers, said daughter Yvonne, “You stayed with them because you needed the work.”14 Alice Howell no longer needed the work—at least not at the remnants of L-Ko.15
Just how much remuneration Alice Howell received for her work at L-Ko is unreported. What does survive is a receipt from the U.S. government for income tax paid on May 20, 1918. The total reported amount is $1,310. In 1918, income tax was basically at 12 percent, and with appropriate exemptions, that figure suggests that Alice Howell received only $12,000 a year. Inflation-adjusted, that would be the equivalent of $144,000 today—certainly, a nice amount for many people, but hardly commensurate with her stature as a leading comedy performer.
