Categories
This Christmas Is 100 Years Old

Santa Claus’ Factory (1925) / Our Advice This Festive Season!(1925)

These two films are both vaguely Christmas themed short news items from the Topical Budget newsreel in 1925.

The first item here is sent to us live from Santa’s factory, featuring some slightly bored old men and women assembling toys and making some terrifying looking dolls (see above). The second item features some camels (see below) and a joke so flimsy I feel kind of embarrassed for whoever originally made it, 100 years ago.

And that’s all the Christmas news (from 1925).

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Notes

1. I watched these on the BFI Player (Santa; Advice)

2. Topical Budget were one of the most successful newsreel companies (after Pathe and Gaumont), making over 10,000 different films/stories between 1911 and 1931.

3. You can read a bit more about them here on the BFI site.

4. Hopefully the rest were higher quality than this bloody camels one, though.

5. Even the exclamation mark in the title annoys me a bit.

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Film Information

Title: Santa Claus Factory
Year: 1925
Duration: 1 minute
Watch: BFI Player

Title: Our Advice This Festive Season!
Year: 1925
Duration: 1 minute
Watch: BFI Player

Categories
This Christmas Is 100 Years Old

Santa Claus (1898)

Santa Claus is a minute long film from 1898 showing Santa Claus himself clambering down a chimney and delivering presents to a couple of very excited children.

I like how sweet and strangely magical this is.

Merry Christmas, etc!

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Notes

1. I watched this on youtube originally, but the version on the BFI website looks nicer.

2. According to lots of places, this is the oldest Christmas film in existence.

3. And according to the BFI page about it, this is also the earlier film that shows two things happening in different places at the same time.

4. I have no idea if either of those facts are true.

5. This film is 121 years old!

6. And now I can’t tell if that’s actually a fake snow effect they’re using, or if it’s all just the result of 121 years of dirt and degradation on the celluloid itself.

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Film Information

Title: Santa Claus
Director: GA Smith
Year: 1898
Duration: 1 minute