It’s that time of year, so I went looking for Christmas-themed silent movies. Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was adapted multiple times. The earliest known version was directed by Walter R. Booth and released in 1901. It survives only in a five-minute fragment. A 1908 treatment is considered lost. That leaves Edison’s 1910 film as the earliest treatment that survives in a reasonably complete form. Marc McDermott is an enjoyable Scrooge, and Charles Ogle, better known as the first actor to portray Frankenstein’s monster on the screen, is Bob Cratchit. This is the film I’ve combined with my accompaniment on YouTube.

It’s just ten minutes long, but it’s reasonably true to Dickens’ story. The three spirits are combined into one, but there are still past, present, and (possible) future segments. I don’t think Scrooge at the start of the story is a horrible person; he’s just built walls around himself. After the spirits get him to change, McDermott portrays him as full of humor and fun.

The nice thing about accompanying a ten-minute short is that I can do as many takes as necessary on the keyboard and pick the one I like best. I’m quite satisfied with what I did for this film.