Christmas Carol, 1901: the oldest surviving Dickens film

An early Christmas bonus from the British Film Institute - they've released a fragment from the 1901 film of Dickens's A Christmas Carol on their excellent YouTube site.

Scrooge, or Marley's Ghost, was produced by R. W. Paul the early film pioneer, and based on a stage adaptation by J. C. Buckstone.

This Times review of Buckstone's Vaudeville Theatre production from the same year gives an idea of the style of the thing:

Ebenezer Scrooge is, of course, the principal character, and the close-fisted, hard-hearted old miser is impersonated in a masterly way by Mr Seymour Hicks, who depicts all the odiousness of the character with a fidelity which is lifelike without being repulsive.

And the ghost?

Scrooge's ghostly visitant, the shade of Jacob Marley, his old partner, is quite in the best style of Christmas phantoms ...

... in other words, a bloke with a sheet over his head. Sophisticated the special effects are not, but it is a surprisingly well-preserved little gem nonetheless.