Silent Sunday

There were at least eight silent films made of A Christmas Carol. Almost half are considered lost; few have survived intact. The first version was made in 1901. Only a portion of it survives. It was rarely seen, but thanks to the internet, it can now be viewed from many sites. Tonight I’m viewing one of the survivors.

The 1910 silent version is an uneventful affair that was done by Edison Studios, the movie company owned by Thomas Edison. It runs a bit under fifteen minutes. The runtime alone is a good gauge to not expect much in the way of getting a decent version. I do take it in the context of its time and don’t think it’s actually that bad; I just don’t care much for it, personally.

It’s interesting for the historical value among the various ACCs. Unless you’re a hardcore ACC fanatic, you may not find it that exciting. This is still the early days of film entertainment, so it has to be seen with that perspective.

It is widely available around the web to view. It is available on DVD in a collection of silent film holiday shorts called A Christmas Past.

We all know the story so let’s quickly state some of this short version’s quirks.

• The charity solicitors are a trio instead of a duo; the reformed Scrooge meets all three again before the ending.
• Scrooge’s nephew, who is unnamed, appears with his fiancé and another couple at the counting house. (We learn it is his fiancé instead of his wife during the Spirit’s visions of the present and near the end.)
• In the Present’s visions, the nephew is rejected by his fiancé during the present-day Christmas party “for want of money.”
• Tiny Tim is briefly seen during the visions of the Present but is neither named or a focus in this version.
• Ignorance & Want are changed to Want & Misery.

This is another version where Scrooge experiences visions instead of visiting locations. Anticipating the regretful 1923 version, all the visions take place in Scrooge’s bedroom.

We get the ghost of Jacob Marley but then only one other ghost. An entity called the “Spirit of Christmas” shows Scrooge the various visions of past, present, and future. After each timeframe, the ghost disappears and reappears with the slightest alteration of costume to indicate the time period he is representing.

We have the deviation of Scrooge visiting the Cratchits for Christmas dinner, but he first stops at his nephew’s. Scrooge meets his nephew and the fiancé to inform them he will make his nephew a business partner so he can marry who he chooses. The three of them go along to the Cratchits’ home. The situation with the nephew, and the visit if the three to the Cratchit home, is also done in the 1938 MGM version.

Unique

Absolutely unique to this version:
The vision for a Christmas yet to come has Scrooge witnessing his death with the charwoman at the bedside. As soon he dies, the charwoman steals a ring from his finger.