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The Life and Films of Alice Howell: “The Scream of the Screen”

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Alice Howell (born Alice Florence Clark; May 20, 1886 – April 12, 1961)[1]was a comic silent film actress from New York City. She was the mother of actress Yvonne Howell.

Early reviews of her films describe her as “the scream of the screen”. One reviewer of hers compared her to a “kind of Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., and Max Linder.” All this compressed into “a more or less tiny package of femininity”. Sometimes called “the girl Charlie Chaplin”, she worked for Mack Sennett and later for the L-KO Kompany. Her early comedies were often produced by Universal Pictures.

Alice Howell in 1920

At Mack Sennett’s Keystone Film Company, Howell rose rapidly from public scenes to leading roles in such shorts as Charlie Chaplin’s Laughing Gas (1914), and starred in at least one, Shot in the Excitement (1914). Hired by Sennett’s former deputy, Henry Lehrman, when he created the L-KO Company, Howell was chosen to support Billie Ritchie and became popular in her own short films. By 1917, she was already a favorite with the public, to the point that Julius and Abe Stern created Century Comedies to showcase her talent, making her, along with Mabel Normand and Marie Dressler, the third comedienne to have her own production unit. exclusive. After Howell and Century parted ways in 1919, the company continued to produce comedy shorts and was renamed Stern Brothers Comedies in 1926. In 1919, Howell moved to the independent Emerald Company, which became part of the Reelcraft Corporation and released his still extant film, Distilled Love (1920). The last series Howell starred in was a group of domestic comedies from 1924-25 for Universal Pictures starring a married couple and their goofy butler. When she finished this series, she appeared in one last short film, Madame Dynamite (1926), for the Fox Film Corporation.[2]

Advertisement for the American comedy short Her Lucky Day (1920) with Alice Howell, on page 4275 of the Motion Picture News for May 22, 1920.

Among his more than 100 screen credits, Howell made such films as Caught in a Cabaret (1914), Mabel and Fatty’s Married Life (1915), Neptune’s Naughty Daughter (1917), Green Trees (1924), and Madame Dynamite (1926). . Her Bareback Career (1917) was the first of 12 two-reel comedies for a new corporation that was formed to manufacture and distribute Alice Howell’s comedies.

Howell’s film career continued into the talkies era with a role as the mute servant of the master assassin in the film The Black Ace (1933).

Howell died in Los Angeles, California in 1961, aged 74.

partial filmography[editar]

References[editar]

Slide, Anthony. Silent Players: A Biographical and Autobiographical Study of 100 Silent Film Actors and Actresses. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2002. p. 185.

Mass, Steve. «Alice Howell – Women Film Pioneers Project». Women Film Pioneers Project. Archived from the original on October 10, 2019. Consulted on February 29, 2020. Cedar Rapids, Iowa Republican, At The Theaters, October 8, 1926, Page 3. Elyria, Ohio Chronicle Telegram, Public Will Always Love Laughmakers, July 6 of 1978, Page 24. Janesville, Wisconsin Daily Gazette, News Notes From Movieland, August 31, 1917, Page 6. Los Angeles Times, Book Alice Howell Comedies-Superba, September 23, 1917, Page III17. Los Angeles Times, Actress Gets Half Job, March 24, 1933, Page 7. Slide, Anthony: She Could Be Chaplin!: The Comedic Brilliance of Alice Howell. Jackson : University Press of Mississippi , 2016 .

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2023-08-31 00:50:40
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