Christie Chorus “Sports Girls” Prepare For A Scene – 1925

What is about to happen in this 1925 film is anybody’s guess. But these 16 chorus girls are ready to do some sort of athletic routine in their spiffy hats. As the news slug says:

The athletic training indulged in by the Christie Sports Girls even comes in handy now and then in the pictures. Witness this gym scene in a new Bill Dooley comedy. photo: NEA,(Newspaper Enterprise Association)  December 3, 1925

Forgotten today are brothers Al and Charles Christie of the Christie Film Company. Beginning in 1916, Al Christie produced over 700 films. and directed almost 500 films, mostly shorts, in the silent era. Typical films include such titles as: A Bashful Bigamist (1920); A Handy Husband (1921); Naughty Mary Brown (1921); and Weak But Willing (1929). Though many of the titles sound like stag films they were not. They were simply boy / girl or husband vs. wife comedies.

The advent of sound slowed down production and by the 1930s the Christie Film Company made only a few dozen more films before shutting down.

Bill Dooley was a comedian in vaudeville, later appearing in 89 films from 1925 until 1938.

The Christie Sports chorus girls were similar to Mack Sennett’s bathing beauties and later, The Goldwyn Girls.  It is possible that one of the unnamed chorus girls seen in the publicity photo went on to Hollywood fame. Though looking closely at the photo none of them are recognizable to me, a fan of obscure 1920s and 1930s films.