As soon as full-length film-dramas came into vogue in 1912, the British "dragged out the Dickens", as Tom Lehrer sings somewhere, and became specialisst in the "classic" film which they have remained to this day. This Little Dorrit (not he first - Thanhouser had made a film in 1913) is only known to survive in an eighteen-minute Pathescope version made for home-viewing but even in that sadly abbreviated version (the original ran for more than an hour) it is really just the kind of well-made, well-acted film that the British have produced ever since. Lady Tree (the widow of celebrated actor-mamager Beerbohm Tree) is superb as Mrs. Clennam and it is a great shame that we do not have the complete version.
