Silent Sunday

Tonight, I watched another silent version I have of A Christmas Carol, the 1923 version.  I watched a few in my collection today before I topped it off with this silent.

I really like silent movies. I’ve always tried to avoid judging any movie through the lens of the present and understand it by the terms of its own time. Doing that with this version just accentuates what I think are some of its failings.

By the time the first movies were being made for entertainment, ACC was many decades old and a well-known story. It was almost tailor-made for a visual medium like cinema (some think the opposite). There were at least eight silent versions made! The first time I saw this version was when it was released on DVD in 2007. It was exciting to see and add to the collection. In previous years I really didn’t care much for this version and stated as much in previous blogs. My opinion isn’t as harsh as it used to be with this one. (No, I wasn’t visited by any spirits to change my mind!!) But I still think this version isn’t very good and I still don’t like it much.

It is my opinion the lack of quality in this version is surprising considering the time it was made. By 1923, movies were generally more sophisticated than this.

The story is compacted into 25 minutes so a lot is expectedly missing. Later ACC adaptations would get more detail in close to the same amount of time. In its defense, the story of ACC was known well enough that most viewers of the time were able to “fill in the blanks.” The movie opens with the title “A CHRISTMAS CAROL featuring the character of SCROOGE form the immortal pen of Charles Dickens.”

Only four characters are listed in the films credits: Scrooge, Marley, Mr. Fred, and “Mrs. Fred,” Fred’s wife. This reference to Scrooge’s nephew and his wife admittedly seems strange, but not so much when you consider that Fred does not have a last name and his wife is never named in Dickens’ novella.

Only four sets/locations are used: the counting house, Scrooge’s room at home, the cemetery in the future, and his nephew’s house.

Scrooge is played by Russell Thorndike who I don’t really know much about except that he’s the brother of the great Sybil Thorndike. He’s adequate as Scrooge but not memorable. The placards are a bit puzzling. A few times they appear as what I can only describe as “sloppy.” Were there no proofreaders? There are times they completely garble Dickens’ text.

The version opens pretty much like most others with Scrooge in his counting house. We get the visit from his nephew, Fred. On his entrance, Fred seems foppish, but I believe this is the effect of over-gesturing of silent film acting. Similar to the 1913 version, only one charity solicitor visits Scrooge instead of the usual duo.

One scene that seems a bit out of sorts is Scrooge’s reaction to the caroling boy outside his office. Instead of merely chasing him away, Scrooge goes outside whacks the boy over the head with his ledger! This is an odd action that seems out of sorts with A Christmas Carol – because it is – but not too out of sorts with Dickens. I believe the film’s creators were inspired by another Dickens’ story, The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton from The Pickwick Papers which seems almost a template for A Christmas Carol. Written seven years before ACC, this story’s mean Gabriel Grubb character hears a passing boy singing a Christmas song and hits him on the head with a lantern!

Bob Cratchit’s role is rather small and he appears only in the Scrooge & Marley counting house.

Scrooge goes from the counting house to his room at home. Marley’s visit isn’t memorable. The ghosts come and go very quickly. We get a strange imagining of the Ghost of Christmas Past: almost as some type of elf or imp. He only appears about two or three feet tall. The only “shadow” of the past presented by the Ghost is the breakup with Scrooge’s past fiancée, Belle (who is not named). That’s it. Scrooge does not visit the event; he merely views it as a vision. Then it’s all too quickly onto the next ghost: a giant Ghost of Christmas Present. But it gets worse. The Ghost of the Present shows him nothing. All the Present ghost does is verbally describe (in a silent movie, yet) the Cratchits’ Christmas to Scrooge. This Ghost of Christmas Present could pass as an English Father Christmas. Can it get any stranger? Maybe a little and no better. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come speaks! (He calls himself the “Ghost of the Future.”) This one of the earliest versions this happens. Like the past, the ghost only shows one event: the presentation of Scrooge’s future grave and tombstone. The future is the only time Scrooge is part of an event and it’s only in the graveyard. This is also where the strangest line on any of the placards appears. Scrooge asks the ghost, “Are these the shadows of tombs that will be…?”

Guess what? No Tiny Tim! It comes close to the end with Scrooge going to dinner at Fred’s (Mr. Fred). However, this version does have the characters of Fred’s wife’s sister and his friend, Topper. Neither are seen nor emphasized in most later adaptations.

The ending comes with Scrooge and Bob Cratchit having “a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop” in Scrooge’s room. Though the scene never happens in the novella, it is depicted in one of John Leech’s original illustrations for the book. The illustration is actually recreated here at the end of the movie!

John Leech’s illustration from the novella

The scene recreated for film in 1923

Versions that I don’t like, and there are a few, are the exception. This is sadly one of them. It has a place as part of my collection and an established place in the history of A Christmas Carol, but I say that’s where its value ends. It’s worth a look if you’re curious or, like me, just obsessed and watch it no matter if it’s good or bad.

My DVD of this version is coupled with a copy of the 1913 version starring Seymour Hicks.

Unique

• Scrooge hitting the boy caroler over the head
• We see Fred right after he leave’s Scrooge’s office.  He goes home and tells his wife and sister-in-law that his uncle refused the invitation.
• Scrooge and Bob Cratchit sharing a bowl of smoking bishop

Missing

• Tiny Tim and the rest of Bob Cratchit’s family
• Phantom Hearse
• Marley’s face on the doorknocker
• Young Scrooge at school
• All of the “present” events shown by the Ghost of Christmas Present
• Most of the “yet-to-come” events