Santa Claus

Santa brings a pack of goodies to the little kiddos and all are delighted in the holiday of the year. Admirable special effects for the time and the sheer vintage quality of the film offer undeniable appeal in this minute-sized glimpse from the distant past.

Merry Christmas to all. :-)

Santa Claus (1898)

*** (out of 4)

This early British film is one of the first to show Santa Claus. The film is pretty simple as a couple kids want to stay up to see Santa but their mom makes them go to bed. We then see how Santa gets into their room without waking them up. This film runs 75-seconds so naturally one shouldn't expect a full story but it's interesting to note that they were at least trying to tell something and this is a full five years before THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY. What's interesting when viewing this film today is the look of Santa as they have him a lot thinner than we are use to see and he's also wearing more of a robe than an actual suit. The special effects used in the film are certainly primitive if you compare them to the stuff of today but for 1898 they're actually pretty good. I thought the effect of the mother turning the light off was something incredibly simple but the visual of it was terrific.

British short film made near the end of the 19th century. Which is very cool to me, by the way, watching something made before my great-grandparents were born. It's a little over a minute long and basically just shows Santa Claus visiting a house on Christmas Eve. Interesting for historical reasons, both for film history and Christmas/Santa history. It's hard to rate a thing like this. For the most part, when I rate a movie or short or TV show, I tend to rate it on a technical level compared to similar pieces of its time or before. I also consider historical importance but ultimately entertainment value trumps all for me. This entertained me as much as a minute and change short from 1898 possibly could, and it has some technical prowess for the time on display. So that's where I'm coming from rating this as high as I did. Others will rate it higher but I just couldn't and I felt like rating it lower would be unfair.

This interesting look at a vision of Santa Claus from the late nineteenth century is notable for a number of reasons. First is obviously its age. I think it's the first piece of movie-making from the nineteenth century that I've ever seen, and the quality and clarity was quite surprising, given that age. There's some decent enough use of special effects (extremely primitive by today's standards, but surprisingly effective when placed in their historical context.) The image of Santa Claus gives us a bit of a picture of how the jolly old man has evolved over the years. In this vignette, he has the traditional white beard but his clothing appears to be more of a robe than a suit, and he's very thin compared to the image of Santa we have today. In a little over a minute, filmmaker G.A. Smith was able to tell us the story of a Christmas Eve when two young children are put to bed. It seems to me that the first appearance of Santa is meant to be a dream that the children are having, as Santa appears hovering over them in the corner of the screen. As the children dream of Santa, he then comes through the darkness and into their bedroom to leave them with candy. It's really a delightful little film, fascinating from a historical point of view. I find it difficult to rate, because I really have nothing to compare it to from that era, but I'd say somewhere around 8/10 seems right.

When you look at films from before the 20th century or so, you need to keep them in context to properly enjoy them. First, most all films of the time were less than two minutes long (like this one). Second, a traditional style narrative was unusual...often the films just shows snippets of everyday events. But in "Santa Claus", the filmmakers have done something different...they have a fictionalized story AND it's pretty charming...albeit short.

The story begins with a servant putting two kids to bed. Soon, Santa arrives and he's holding a small Christmas tree. He enters the kids' room, deposits small toys in their stockings and simply disappears.

In 1898, Santa was not the ever-present symbol he later became and Santa's look wasn't so codified. This one looks a bit more like Father Christmas but nevertheless, you will recognize him and what is happening. Rather sweet and charming despite its brevity.