Recommendations
Senior Film Conservator

Looking back at the 1935 milestone that is Penny Wise, the cinematic shorthand used by Al Christie is both ancient and revolutionary. Dive into this collection and find the spiritual successors to Al Christie's vision.
As Al Christie's most celebrated work, it defines to articulate the unspoken anxieties of United States's 1935 era.
When the owner of a department store is about to go on vacation, he tells his children that any idiot could run the store. So, he leaves Joe Cook in charge, since he meets those qualifications.
Based on the unique unique vision of Penny Wise, our vault has identified these titles as the most compelling follow-up experiences for fans of Short cinema:
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.
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Dir: Al Christie
A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.
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
A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.
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Dir: Al Christie
Ann is one tough cowgirl. After she beats up Hank, her parents send her East to college, hoping she'll come back a lady.
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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Dir: Al Christie
Jay made the fatal error of trying to make his wife believe that he had all the money in the world.
Dir: Al Christie
A company of barnstormers goes on strike in the middle of a performance and a number of local amateurs are prevailed upon to furnish the show, which they do in more ways than one.
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Dir: Al Christie
A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.
View DetailsAnalysis relative to Penny Wise
| Film Title | Atmosphere | Complexity | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Some Cave Man | Ethereal | Layered | 91% Match |
| Lost: A Bridegroom | Gothic | Dense | 97% Match |
| Wild and Western | Gritty | High | 93% Match |
| Bobby's Baby | Surreal | Abstract | 94% Match |
| Too Many Wives | Ethereal | Layered | 97% Match |
This guide was algorithmically generated using the cinematic metadata of Al Christie's archive. Last updated: 6/6/2026.
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