The Night Before Christmas

Night Before Christmas, The (1905)

*** (out of 4)

I believe this was the first version of the famous poem and wouldn't you know it would come from Edison Studios and the forgotten Edwin S. Porter. The movie pretty much shows a group of kids getting ready for bed as Santa gets his reindeers ready for the night's work. While the special effects are obviously fake you can't help but fall victim to the film's charm, which is shining very brightly from start to finish. The movie does a wonderful job of coming off like a fairy tale and this is especially true during all the scenes with Santa. The highlight of the film is a sequence where Santa takes off with his deers and rides over various mountains before going through the air. Again, it's obvious how this scene was shot but that doesn't take away from any of its charm or magic. I don't think the film has lost any of its magic but you can't help but wonder how great this thing would have been in 1905.

This film was made by Edwin S. Porter for Edison in a style consistent with "The Great Train Robbery", though not containing quite as many setups. It is loosely based on Clement Clark Moore's original poem, and only includes brief snatches from the text in the form of titles. The opening scenes are short and deal with Santa's activities at the North Pole, as he feeds hay to his reindeer, works with his elves and updates his "list". Then it cuts to a rather long scene in a household with several children getting ready for Christmas and being sent up the staircase to bed. The most remarkable sequence in the film follows, as it consists of an elaborate turntable diorama portraying Santa, reindeer and sleigh traveling from the North Pole's icy wastes to the bright lights of the city. Some of the reindeer seem not to gallop quite consistently, but it is still an amazing achievement for a 1906 film. Then, in a scene well-known via an oft reproduced still, Santa is seen on rooftop, dropping his sack into the chiminy and going down it himself. The next scene is set in the same household as before, with Santa installing presents, stockings, decorations; he even puts up the tree! (This is followed by a title which is either misplaced or once led to scene which is now missing). The title is followed by another long scene where the children run down the stairs, open presents, jump around and generally involve themselves in the merriment and joy of Christmas. The film closes with a close-up shot of Santa with the caption "Merry Christmas To All." While "The Night Before Christmas" is not cut of quite the same ground-breaking cloth of the "The Great Train Robbery", it is still immensely charming as an early Christmas film, and the diorama constructed for Santa's journey is quite an impressive special effect for this era.

Considering we were in the birth of the cinema, this does a decent job of portraying at least part of the classic poem. It begins with Santa preparing, getting the reindeer ready, and finishing a couple toys. Cut to a big multi-generational family, getting the kids ready, stockings hung, kids in bed, and so on. The kids have a nurse so they must be wealthy. When a little guy stirs them up, a pillow fight ensues, quite a dramatic effect. The plot can't get any more simple, but it showed off the technology of the time.

Twixt shots of Santa feeding the reindeer and polishing off one last puppet for the poppets, scenes of a family in the parlor celebrating Christmas Eve, children having a pillow fight, and some cute miniature work of the sleigh carrying gifts traveling over snow, we get verses of Clement Clark More's "A Visit From Saint Nicholas."

It's just the thing to watch during Christmastide in my apartment in Chelsea in Manhattan, where Moore wrote the poem so many years ago, helping to establish our modern idea of Old St. Nick. It captures the spirit of the poem perfectly. As another classic of the season urges, G*d bless us, every one.

This early holiday-themed feature is enjoyable to watch, and it is also a good example of Edwin S. Porter's style in filming special effect or fantasy movies. The story, loosely based on the theme of the poem "The Night Before Christmas", is old-fashioned in a good way that works pretty well. It's also one of the earlier movies to feature the use of cross-cutting or parallel editing.

The story alternates between two story lines, with 'Santa Claus' getting everything ready for his December 24 deliveries, while at the same time the children from a large family are having difficulty falling asleep due to their excitement. The 'Santa' portions flesh out the standard legend with Porter's characteristic style, and the family sequences are easy to identify with, for just about anyone who remembers being a child.

As director and cinematographer, Porter takes his usual approach with this kind of material. Rather than striving to make the settings and visual effects seem as lifelike as possible, he instead aims to make them interesting and pleasing to look at in their own right. It works well here, and the images seem to fit in well with the story. It's short (less than ten minutes), yet the length seems just about right, and it makes for an entertaining little movie.