Dorothy Christy gives screen fools someone formidable to answer to. We value her work as a comedy foil, while wishing the wives, mothers and socialites she so often played had more to do than disapprove.
Fi1m perspective
In Sons of the Desert (1933), Dorothy Christy’s Betty Laurel is not there to applaud her husband’s foolishness. Christy is an effective comic presence because her disapproval gives the men something to contend with. William A. Seiter’s farce is warmly recommended, though its wives are too often confined to stopping the husbands’ fun. We laughed at Laurel and Hardy’s wounded dignity, but felt frustrated that Betty was given so little pleasure of her own.
Mae Busch’s Lottie Hardy has enough force to make Oliver Hardy’s authority look doubtful from the start. Her impatience becomes a source of comedy in its own right, while Christy’s Betty remains more restricted by the requirement to object. The writing limits both women, but it would be a mistake to treat their work as an interruption to the comedy. The husbands’ discomfort is funnier when the women have a reasonable claim on our sympathy, even if the film gives us more opportunity to enjoy being foolish than being right.
Such supporting work runs through Christy’s 1930s films, from Angelica Embrey in the Buster Keaton comedy Parlor, Bedroom and Bath (1931) to Anita Smythe, the avaricious mother in Bright Eyes (1934). Wives, mothers and socialites gave her repeated opportunities to be chilly or difficult. They also kept her close to stock characters whose function could be understood before they had much chance to speak. Her usefulness as a straight woman is worth recognising without pretending those parts always gave her much freedom.
The science-fiction serial The Phantom Empire (1935) gave her a larger part as Queen Tika, an imperious ruler opposite Gene Autry. The regal line readings can become hammy; the extra prominence does not necessarily bring more subtlety. Smaller and uncredited parts predominated in the 1940s, including an appearance in Laura (1944), with less of the prominence of her earlier supporting work. Start with Sons of the Desert, and spare some attention for the wife who has to live with one of its fools.
Biography
Dorothy Christy, also credited as Dorothy Christie and born Dorothea J. Seltzer, was an American actress. She appeared in over 100 feature films between 1929 and 1953, often in supporting or uncredited roles.
She is known for her performance as Mrs. Betty Laurel in the Laurel and Hardy comedy Sons of the Desert (1933). Other credits include Laura (1944), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), The Phantom Empire (1935) as Queen Tika, and The Fountainhead (1949). She also worked in stage productions and with performers including Will Rogers, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers.
Christy was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and died in Santa Monica, California, in 1977.
