Fantastic!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

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.

Possibly the earliest? In any case, it's the earliest I've seen. The kids are taken to bed, they hang out their stockings and Santa arrives through the snowy landscape while they're deep asleep and fills their stocking with candy. Unfortunately the film ends before we see the joy and delight in the brother's and sister's eyes the next morning. It's certainly one of the best films for children of its era and it's even worth showing it to your little ones today. An interesting fact about it is also the idea in people's minds back then that even the Christmas tree is brought by Santa, a truly uncommon approach today. However, my favorite part had nothing to do with the holiday feeling it delivers. It was the way the moment the mother switched off the light and how our perception of the room is changed by the director at this exact moment. Excellent display of fade to darkness and a short film I'd easily recommend to people all ages, especially those who are about to get into the silent film genre. A very entertaining minute.

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.

Is it magic lantern or already a movie in its own rights? I would say it's still in between: the children are dreaming of Santa Claus, he's making his appearance in some kind of nineteenth century UFO in the upper corner of the screen, then by some magic he enters the room. Still thin, not the fat guy of today's commercials, still dressed in a robe, no boots, no trousers; definitely the Santa of our great-great-grandfathers' dreams.This movie proves the genius of George Albert Smith: he was still in transition toward the cinematic specific, while resolutely designing the grammar of the new art.Well, this is fine, but the question remains: this apparition of Santa, is it a dream, or a parallel action? You know, that's with the great movies: they have open endings, leaving the outcome for us.