Le Noël de Monsieur le curé

Alice Guy's "The Parish Priest's Christmas," according to Alison McMahan (in her book "Alice Guy Blaché: Lost Visionary of the Cinema"), is a surviving example of the "miracle films" she regularly produced for Gaumont that expounded on Catholicism and, often, as does this one, on Christmas. Here, the parish priest looks to create a nativity scene for his church, but his congregation is too poor to afford the statuary dealer's price for a statue of baby Jesus. The miracle, then, is that the faithful's prayers are answered by the appearance of angels and the Virgin Mary, who present them with a statue.

Hokey stuff, but this early story film does consist of five tableau, as well as stop-substitution effects for Mary and the angels, and without intertitles--the only words alerting to the Christmas dating in an insert shot. Competent if unmiraculous.