A Christmas Carol Holiday Season: "A Christmas Carol" (1910 silent short film)
This silent Christmas Carol, only slightly longer than ten minutes, is the second oldest surviving film version of Dickens' novella and the oldest complete one. (A British film titled Scrooge from 1901 also survives, but is missing its opening and closing scenes.) Produced by Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Studio, it's nowhere close to being a definitive Carol, but it's a very interesting historical artifact, and an enjoyable one too.
Dickens' narrative is condensed in a way that suits the short format, but which no adaptation could get away with today due to the story's sheer familiarity. In place of the traditional three spirits, Scrooge is visited by a single "Spirit of Christmas," a jolly giant in festive robes who chiefly resembles Dickens' Ghost of Christmas Present, but with the long white hair and androgyny of the Ghost of Christmas Past. Nor do they ever leave Scrooge's bedroom. Instead of visiting different times and places, Scrooge is shown transparent visions which appear and fade. Tiny Tim makes just a cameo appearance in the Cratchits' house, with his name never even mentioned and his illness never addressed. And in Christmas Yet to Come, in place of the book's "mystery" of the hated dead man's identity, Scrooge sees himself die, with a maid coldly stealing a ring from his finger. Still, there's room for a little bit of story expansion. Rather than already being married, Scrooge's nephew Fred has a sweetheart whose father refuses to let them wed because Fred is too poor. But in the end, the redeemed Scrooge makes Fred his new business partner, which will give him the income to support a wife. He then takes the happy young couple to deliver gifts to the Cratchits' house on Christmas morning, where at first the whole family comically thinks Scrooge has gone mad. As we'll see, this isn't the last Carol film where these embellishments will be used.
Though the camera is static, and the film direction and acting are stagy by modern standards, this short still boasts a good atmosphere and a strong cast. Marc McDermott is excellently cast as Scrooge: tall, commanding, effective both in his meanness and in his ultimate warmth and cheer, and only slightly melodramatic now and then. The only other credited actor is Charles S. Ogle (who, earlier in the same year, was the first actor ever to play Frankenstein's monster onscreen) as Bob Cratchit, but all the performers fill their roles well.
This Carol might be eclipsed by later versions, but no one can deny that it's interesting, or that it has charm.
@ariel-seagull-wings, @superkingofpriderock, @faintingheroine, @reds-revenge
