Walter R. Booth

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