The surviving footage of this first silent film of
A Christmas Carol—nearly three
and a half minutes at the British Film Institute—has no dialogue cards, but does include
intertitles at the start of each scene, including one that makes it clear that Scrooge sees
only visions of the past with no interactions (and thus, no actual time travel. The few
seconds of the Christmas “that might be” is not enough to tell whether it’s also a mere
vision. I enjoyed the special effects, possibly made with double exposures (note the
convenient black curtain).
— Michael Main
Scene II
1 English variant