As mentioned on Monday, I want to give each of my December posts a Christmassy touch, and of course that also goes for my selection of silent movies.
Almost exactly one year ago, I wrote about my "Little Lord Fauntleroy" marathon, whose 1980 version is one of Germany's beloved Christmas classics, and how I didn't have the patience for watching the silent movie version with Mary Pickford (how things have changed), so that would be an obvious first choice, right? Wrong. Like the book, that version doesn't end with a Christmas feast.
But are there any silent Christmas movies at all? Luckily, I found two pages which listed several for me and I just needed to pick.
Let's start with something short by a good old friend - Georges Méliès.
It's "La R
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| The children are asleep and dream of Christmas while the nanny keeps watch. |
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| Dance of the toys - granted, some of them are a little weird and the jester loses his shoe, but ok. |
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| Angels dropping gifts in the chimney. I guess Santa needed a little break and they offered to help out? |
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| Kids (and the verger?) ringing the bells while people come out of the snow into the church. |
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| See the old man with the beard? He and another beggar had been out in the snow, mostly ignored by the wealthy people entering the building. When he comes inside, the servants try to throw him out, but the Christmas spirit made the host drag him (quite literally) back to the table to give him food and drink. |
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| The children have woken up, it's time for gifts. I have no idea what kind of gift that huge cat head is, but I definitely want that! |
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| Gathering around the Christmas tree. |
Oh wow! It’s kind of like when I make a video on instagram made up of photos rather than videos. The pictures are really sharp. Looks like a 4 minutes well-spent.
ReplyDeleteDepending on the degree of preservation and restoration it's amazing how clear some of these films are and others not at all. I'm glad this one was good enough to enjoy all the sets!
DeleteThis brings back good memories from my childhood. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Linda!
DeleteOMG the cat head - amazing! Now everyone knows what to get your for Christmas...:D
ReplyDeleteI just doubt anyone knows where to find something like it! Pity because it's so cool.
DeleteYou know, there's something just so magical about silent movies. They did so much without saying a word.
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It's really amazing how few words or none at all you sometimes need to understand a situation!
DeleteI'm interested to know how your interest in silent movies came about. I never thought about them, until I started reading your blog and you woke me right up, so now I find myself thinking about silent movies!
ReplyDeleteThinking about it, that's actually a way longer story than silent movies have been on my blog, with a lot of breaks. I think it might be one for a whole blog post in the New Year.
DeleteI am surprised myself how it has developed over the course of this year, though!
I have only watched one silent movie. I should try more. I was surprised this one was so short! Your captions are hilarious by the way! Well, the ones that were supposed to be funny. Hopefully you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleteThe oldest films are only about a minute long. There are one reelers, two reelers, and so on ...
DeleteI think shorts are a very good option to ease your way into silent movies. It's so much easier to do ten or fifteen minutes for a start. Of course I started with two and a half hours 😂
I know what you mean and thank you!