Home Alone, the Grinch, Elf and The Polar Express are all Christmas classics. However, where did it all start? What is the origin of the very first Christmas movie?
A silent film, from 1898 begins by showing two children being put into bed by a maid, presumably on Christmas Eve. The lights are turned off. A few seconds later, we see Santa Claus enter the house through the chimney, holding an unrecognisable object in his hands. Unlike the stereotypical Santa Claus of modern society, he wears a robe, but, he does have the iconic long, white beard.
After placing a few presents in the stocking that hang at their bed (and dropping one), he works his Christmas magic and disappears. The children wake up, smile, clap and look into their stockings. The end.
At first, the silence is creepy. The black and white irks you. It reminds you that cinema has come a lot way. Yet, it also reminds you that the heart of Christmas hasn't. Being a child, hoping to see Santa, being told to sleep on Christmas Eve, waking up early with a smile on your face to be greeted by presents. None of it has changed.
So, who is the person that created it?
British filmmaker, George Albert Smith, born on 4th January 1864, was the director of the film. Despite being an early pioneer of cinema, he remains unappreciated.
It is believed that he was one of the first film makers to ever use parallel action in their movies, which is when when two or more scenes that are occurring in different locations, are put together to appear as though they are happening simultaneously. This was one of the many film editing techniques that he has been accredited for.
Smith also helped and worked with Charles Urban, one of the most influential film producers of that era, to form Kinemacolor. Smith invented the first proper natural coloured motion picture process.
This was done by using a camera with a rotating wheel that had red and green filters on it and then projected through a special projector, that also had the same wheel. It produced a minimal but accurate colour palette. Kinemacolor went on to create films, some of which were also viewed by royalty.
Unfortunately, Smith and his work were forgotten by the film industry partly due to the lawsuit that Urban lost. Urban had patented the colour film process/Kinemacolor. This patent was challenged in court by William Friese-Greene, another pioneer in the film industry, as it stopped him from showing his coloured films to the public. He argued that Kinemacolor did not do exactly what the patent said it did. It was ruled that the patent was invalid which resulted in colour films and its techniques no longer being exclusive to Kinemacolor.
Sadly, Urban lost a large amount of money and Smith's invention was overshadowed by other companies and by better byproducts.
In a world where films are released every few months, where there is a new 'viral' actor every week and the same directors are applauded and acknowledged, George Albert Smith was the first known man to film a Christmas movie and was the first man to create a colour film process.
But, he was also a romantic, with his wife and himself playing as characters in many of his films, as seen in The Kiss in the Tunnel (1899).
At the end of the day, he is the man who paved the way for millions of movies that now hold the happy memories of our childhood.
