Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost (1901)

Dec 10, 2012



Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost, directed by Walter R. Booth, is the oldest known film adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1843 novel A Christmas Carol - featuring the miserly Ebeneezer Scrooge confronted by Marley's ghost and given by visions of Christmas Past, Present and Future. The film, "although somewhat flat and stage-bound to modern eyes," according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "was an ambitious undertaking at the time," as, "not only did it attempt to tell an 80 page story in five minutes, but it featured impressive trick effects, superimposing Marley's face over the door knocker and the scenes from his youth over a black curtain in Scrooge's bedroom." It was presented in 'Twelve Tableaux' or scenes and is thought to contain the first ever use of intertitles in a film. (Wikipedia)