Recommendations
Senior Film Conservator

The United States-born brilliance of A Perfect 36 offers a unique artistic bravery, the juxtaposition of artistic bravery and narrative makes it a Short outlier. Dive into this collection and find the spiritual successors to Al Christie's vision.
In the Pantheon of Short cinema, A Perfect 36 to elevate Short to the level of high art.
Bobby is asked by a stranger to start his car. Bobby accommodates the gentleman, realizing too late that he is a master automobile thief. The latter spots the police and makes a safe getaway, while Bobby is chased. He finds his way into the home of a friend who masquerades him as his wife. Enter his father and sweetheart and the trouble starts anew with the police hot on his trail. The father welcomes "the wife" and invites her to a cruise, where the officers are still in hot pursuit. Escape seems impossible and his friend is hopeless "in wrong" with his sweetheart, who believes she has been jilted. Bobby detects the thief and makes a dive for him, thrashes him severely and everything clears up satisfactorily happy for everybody concerned.
Based on the unique artistic bravery of A Perfect 36, our vault has identified these titles as the most compelling follow-up experiences for fans of Short cinema:
Dir: Al Christie
Jay made the fatal error of trying to make his wife believe that he had all the money in the world.
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Dir: Al Christie
After Eddie Plum discovers oil on the family ranch, he and his widowed mother move to the city where they meet Lord Burlington, a British fortune hunter. Burlington introduces the Plums to two socialites, Mrs. Van Zant and Betty, her daughter, and while Burlington woos Mrs. Plum, Eddie falls in love with Betty. A double wedding is arranged, but on the day of the ceremony, Mrs. Plum announces that the deed to her land has been stolen and without it she has no claim. Devastated by the news, Burlington requests a postponement and leaves. In spite of the apparent disaster, Eddie and Betty elope while Mrs. Plum, hurt by the Lord's sudden departure, plans to return to the country. Realizing that his affections for the widow are genuine, Burlington asks for her forgiveness and insists on the marriage. Her faith restored, Mrs. Plum reveals that the stolen documents were fakes, and that her oil millions are safe.
Dir: Al Christie
Bobby, a clerk, is sent on a hurry trip by his boss to deliver a $5,000 check to Mr. Brown. Bobby meets a girl while on the train. At the junction they miss another train, wait three hours, arrive at the home of Brown - and then the plot deepens when another plot in the making makes it appear that the girl is Brown's wife.
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Dir: Al Christie
A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.
Dir: Al Christie
A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.
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Dir: Al Christie
Bobby had been instrumental in having Dorothy Invited to a weekend party that he might propose to her in ideal surroundings. There were other chaps in the competition, however, and Dorothy was a bit coy when Bobby tried to monopolize her society. In fact, she seemed more than willing to have the other fellows do the monopolizing. Sympathetic girl friends of Bobby told him that the slogan of the tanks, "Treat 'Em Rough," was the proper rule in love making - and so Bobby tried it. He kidnapped Dorothy in a motor, drove her to the mountains and forced her by wielding the "cave man's club" to don tiger skins as dress and submit to his commands. That Dorothy liked the idea was evident when the entire weekend delegation followed them forthwith to the mountain cave, bringing along a minister to tie the knot.
Dir: Al Christie
Rosie is a Y. W. C. A. gym instructor in the East. Coincident with her getting a little too rough with one of the girls, knocking her out and being fired from her job as athletic director, Rosie is advised of the fact that she has acquired a piece of real property in the form of the Rough Neck Rancho. There is nothing for her to do but go West, going Horace Greely one better by setting out for the Rough Neck Rancho with the idea of bringing it up right and proper with deft feminine touches. These touches turned out to be deft, but scarcely feminine, inasmuch as they were blows from Rosie's husky mitt. Naturally, a bunch of bewhiskered and devil-may-care cowboys resented the innovation of a woman manager, and when Rosie ordered the foreman and all the rest of them to shave their mustaches, it was a little too much for hard boiled Bill and his gang of leather-necked cowboys. Rosie imported a bunch of strikebreakers, some of her own girl pals, who were nicely settled in the ranch house. Bad Bill hit upon the brilliant idea of hiring a bunch of Indians to attack the ranch house, scare the wits out of the Eastern young ladies and otherwise maintain the morale of the men folks around Rough Neck Rancho. It was a bad day for the Indians and a worse day for the cowboys, as it turned out, for after Rosie and her cohort of Sure-Shot Susie's finished mopping off the Indians out of the barricades of windows, and after three or four Indians had bitten the dust after good old-fashioned melodramatic style, the redskins turned around and licked the tar out of all the cowboys for putting them up to such a hazardous undertaking. By this time one or two of the cowboys had fallen for the lure of the women folks and had sacrificed their flowing whiskers, their sole pride and joy, under the telling fire of Cupid's darts. Red Bill, the burly foreman, was finally vanquished by Rough Neck Rosie in a fist fight which was not exactly fair but thoroughly effective. Bill got the final wallop when he wasn't looking by one of Rosie's pals planted behind a carpet before which the fight took place. At the end of the second reel of desperate milling Rosie and her pals are victorious and the Rough Neck Rancho settles down to peace and quiet and every clean-shaven cowboy has a little milkmaid on his arm. Motion Picture News, November 1, 1919
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Dir: Al Christie
A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.
Dir: Al Christie
At a choir festival, country girl Sally is kidded by traveling show people into believing that she has a grand opera career. The twist to the story of the ambitious girl going to the city and getting into the chorus comes when she proves to be a "boob," gets ejected from the theater, and is returned to the cows and chickens far from Broadway.
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Analysis relative to A Perfect 36
| Film Title | Atmosphere | Complexity | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tell Your Wife Everything | Tense | Dense | 89% Match |
| Mrs. Plum's Pudding | Gothic | Abstract | 88% Match |
| Three Hours Late | Gritty | Layered | 87% Match |
| A Flirt There Was | Gritty | Dense | 88% Match |
| Bobby's Baby | Surreal | Abstract | 94% Match |
This guide was algorithmically generated using the cinematic metadata of Al Christie's archive. Last updated: 6/15/2026.
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