Here we have the earliest surviving film version of a Dickens work, an incident from BLEAK HOUSE.... perhaps. Bits of OLIVER TWIST on screen date from 1897, but they are lost; the 1901 version of A CHISTMAS CAROL does what it can in a couple of minutes, which is not much, unless you know the work.
This one is only a couple of minutes, and its events are pretty much summed up in the title. It's done in one shot, clearly on a stage. It's about as uncinematic as you can get, even for the era. Nonetheless, we'll call it interesting from a historic viewpoint. Dickens stuff translates very well to the screen because his style of story-telling became the model. His work was strongly influenced by the magic lantern, the cinema's precursor and a source of many of its techniques. Nonetheless, unless you are a deep-dyed film history fan, this is not for you.
This one is only a couple of minutes, and its events are pretty much summed up in the title. It's done in one shot, clearly on a stage. It's about as uncinematic as you can get, even for the era. Nonetheless, we'll call it interesting from a historic viewpoint. Dickens stuff translates very well to the screen because his style of story-telling became the model. His work was strongly influenced by the magic lantern, the cinema's precursor and a source of many of its techniques. Nonetheless, unless you are a deep-dyed film history fan, this is not for you.
