Byrdz The 1901 silent version of "A Christmas Carol"... who wudda thunk it ? Is the internet great or what ?This short (very short) films is known as "Scrooge; or Marley's Ghost". It's quite theatrical with what appears to be painted canvas (or cardboard) sets, very little story and a totally unidentified cast.It's terrific to be able to view what remains of what is said to be the earliest version of this Dicken's story.It has fewer than the usual number of ghosts but it does have "trick shots" with superimposed images.It's worth a look, movie history wise.

jacobjohntaylor1 This is a very good movie. It is very scary. It also well written. 1951 version of A Christmas carol is better. But still this a great film. A miser is hunted by the dead sprite of an old friend on Christmas eve. This one best ghost stories ever. It is also on of the best moral stories ever. It is a classic. I enjoy the book a little more. But still this is a great movie. This movie is a must see. It has great acting. It also has a great story line. It also has great special effects. I do not know any of the actors but they are good. This is a great fantasy movie. It is a hidden classic. This a great movie. The 1986 version of A Christmas carol is better. But still this a great movie.

MartinHafer I am not going to give this film a numerical score, as the film is very incomplete. Like so many old films made on nitrate film stock, much of the film has been lost. What remains is highly abbreviated and makes little sense unless you know the story (and today who doesn't?). In addition, films made around that time were VERY short and abbreviated to begin with--so you have a film that has limited watchability today. You can't blame the film makers for all this--this is true of many films of the era.The film begins as Scrooge approaches his house and Marley's ghost appears on the door knocker. Using superimposed images, this and the appearances of Christmas ghosts are pretty good--especially for 1901. Scrooge then eats his dinner and falls asleep--at which point the first ghost appears and shows his what seem to be random images. The film then indicates that part 3 follows--and you are left assuming part 2 was partially skipped (especially the intertitle card indicating part 2 had begun). Part 4 is poorly done--as the intertitle card pretty much says it all BEFORE you see any of the action. This describing everything before it occurs was actually very common in 1901 but it sure took out any sense of suspense! And finally, the ending is completely missing.What you have is a reasonably well made film. Considering most films made about 1901 showed very mundane things (people eating, trains arriving at the station, etc.), this is a nice attempt to tell a story. And, the camera-work for the time is good. But, on the other hand, only about half of the original film still exists and unless you are dying to see what is perhaps the first Scrooge on film, I suggest you watch only if you are a die-hard cinephile.

Cineanalyst Nowadays, we often take for granted the approach, grammar and techniques that make up self-contained narrative movies. This seems to have been a natural advancement, but it was actually a difficult problem to early filmmakers. Many hesitated to even edit together spatially separate shots to tell a story for concerns that it would seem discontinuous. In "Scrooge; or Marley's Ghost", Walter Booth and R.W. Paul approached this problem by using a story that a general audience already knew, but abridged it, explained some finer points in the intertitles and packaged it within the tableaux style. Perhaps, a lecturer would even provide further clarification during an exhibition. Several other filmmakers tried this as well, including Cecil Hepworth with "Alice in Wonderland" (1903) and Edwin S. Porter with "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1903). The earliest and most common films of this kind, however, were the passion plays. Another early story film James White's "Love and War" (1899) was accompanied by explanatory song. This kind of filmic storytelling soon became outdated in comparison to, but for a time coexisted with, the story film, especially the chase films, which established continuity editing. Of course, novels would still be abridged, intertitles would occasionally do too much of the work, and the tableaux style continued in some places, but films became self-contained narratives. Therefore, this film is outdated, but it does have some interesting aspects.This is perhaps the earliest screen adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". Apparently, there were earlier film versions of other Dickens' stories, but according to the British Film Institute, this is the earliest that survives. Ewan Davidson for the BFI further adds that it was based on a play by J.C. Buckstone, which like the film, dispensed with the different ghosts for a condensed vision provided by Marley's ghost. Additionally, Dickens, with this book, was one of the more important 19th Century writers to invent the family-oriented, charitable and gift-giving Christmas holiday that we know today. Likewise, this film is an early example of a Christmas film released during the season.This was an elaborate film for 1901; originally, it supposedly contained 13 scenes. What remains is less than five minutes with about six scenes in their entirety and a brief glimpse of another scene. In what remains, there are some novel techniques for the time. There are multiple exposure shots for the ghosts, but this effect had already been done in previous films; this is, however, the earliest instance that I've seen of using the multiple exposure effect for overlapping images with title cards. This is also an early use of title cards in general, although they had appeared less elaborately in a few earlier films, including "How It Feels to Be Run Over" (1900). Furthermore, this is the first instance I've seen of the wipe, which transitions between shots. Dissolves are also used, which is a transition effect that Georges Méliès had already established in his films. Scenes are also tinted.