A Christmas Carol (1910)
The day before the Christmas holiday, Ebenezer Scrooge, a hard-fisted miser, refuses to contribute to the Charity Relief Committee, and then rudely rejects his nephew Fred when he visits Scrooge in his office. When Scrooge returns home, he sees the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley, who warns him of the punishment he will suffer in the next life if he does not change his ways. That night, Scrooge is visited by three more spirits, who show him his past, the present, and the future that awaits him.
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Very well executed
Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike
It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.
It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
The title "A Christmas Carol" makes it of course obvious that here we have another take on the famous story by writer Charles Dickens and this is certainly among the oldest as it has its 107th anniversary already this year. Dickens wasn't even dead for half a century when this was released. There were quite a few directors working on this one, especially if we take into account that it runs for 14 minutes only (the version I saw did, not just for 11 like it says here on IMDb). Sure the film is crucially hurt by the lack of sound and color, but you cannot really blame the makers for that. This also means that if you hear a score while watching, then this is not original and was added (decades) later. They still did a good job overall here, especially with the ghost sequences that are pretty impressive for their time. The actors are fine too and don't make the mistake of overacting too much, which was a common problem back in the day. The one playing the title character was in fact not even 30 here, but his gray wig hides it pretty well. Intertitles could have been more frequent for sure (another common problem back then), but you understand what's going on thanks to the famous material this is based on. And the latter is also what guarantees this to be a fine watch during the holidays. Not my favorite version (that's probably still the animated one by Disney), but it is worth seeing. If you are looking for other silent Christmas films, then my suggestion is to go for "A Christmas Accident" that came out not much later than this one here.
The oldest surviving version of "A Christmas Carol" is a short movie from 1901 in which Marley shows Scrooge the past, present and future. The next one is this 1910 version which includes the ghosts of the respective times. As a short movie, it has to condense the story. They manage to do this, although it's weird to see the whole plot run by in just a few minutes. I understand that a number of short movies in the early 20th century were based on famous novels to limit the need for intertitles. Since I've seen feature films based on Charles Dickens's famous novel this one seems a little bit low quality. My favorite adaptation is "Scrooged" (which contains lines like "You are a hallucination brought along by alcohol! Russian vodka poisoned by Chernobyl!"). Nonetheless, it's impressive what they accomplished with their limited resources.
As someone who has an interest in the film history of A Christmas Carol but only a modest knowledge of silent films, I appreciate the previous reviewers remarks about this short film. Given its length, the movie well captures the essence of the Dickens' story although I did miss Tiny Tim. I thought the special effects were pretty good especially given the production date of the movie. This is one of those movies that is interesting to me only because of its historical significance and that it was an early filming of a beloved story. I wonder if even audiences at the time of the movie's release liked this movie unless they were already familiar with the Dickens story and viewed this film as a curiosity. Comedy was much better suited to one reelers than was drama. Nonetheless, I'm glad I saw it.
Christmas Carol, A (1910) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Early version of the classic Dickens' story has Marc McDermott playing the miser Scrooge who gets a visit from three ghosts who will try and make him change his ways. Even though this film only lasts ten-minutes it packs in all the important details of the story and turns out to be a pretty good movie. For 1910, the special effects are pretty good with the ghost "visions" coming across quite well. McDermott does a very good job in his role even though he can never really dive into it due to the film not really lasting long enough to get to the more adult or scary parts of the story. Charles Ogle plays Bob Cratchit, which was fun seeing as the same year he'd also play the monster in Frankenstein.