''Santa Claus'' is an

1898 Events January–March * January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, B ...

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

short silent

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

, directed by

George Albert Smith George Albert Smith Sr. (April 4, 1870 – April 4, 1951) was an American religious leader who served as the eighth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Early life Born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territor ...

, which features Santa Claus visiting a house on Christmas Eve. The film, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "is believed to be the cinema's earliest known example of parallel action and, when coupled with double-exposure techniques that Smith had already demonstrated in the same year's '' The Mesmerist'' (1898) and ''

Photographing a Ghost ''Photographing a Ghost'' (1898) is a short film that was directed by George Albert Smith. It is about photographers A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", t ...

'' (1898), the result is one of the most visually and conceptually sophisticated British films made up to then." It has been described as the very first Christmas movie and a technical marvel of its time.

Plot

Two children are being placed in bed by a maid. She turns off the lights and the children fall asleep. Santa Claus enters the room from the fireplace and proceeds to trim the tree. He then fills the stockings that were previously hung on the mantle by the children. After walking backward and surveying his work, he suddenly darts at the fireplace and disappears up the chimney. The children wake up to see that Santa was in their bedroom. This film surprises everyone and leaves them to wonder how

St. Nicholas Saint Nicholas of Myra, ; la, Sanctus Nicolaus (traditionally 15 March 270 – 6 December 343), also known as Nicholas of Bari, was an early Christian bishop of Greek descent from the maritime city of Myra in Asia Minor (; modern-day Demre ...

disappeared.

References

External links

* *
Santa Claus
' on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

1890s British films British silent short films British Christmas drama films Santa Claus in film Films directed by George Albert Smith Articles containing video clips British black-and-white films 1890s drama films 1890s Christmas films 1898 short films Silent drama films {{short-silent-drama-film-stub

Plot

See also

References

External links