Watch the Earliest-Recognized Charles Dickens Movie: The Dying of Deficient Joe

A lit­tle over a decade in the past, a cura­tor on the British Movie Insti­tute (BFI) dis­cov­ered the previous­est sur­viv­ing movie fea­tur­ing a Charles Dick­ens char­ac­ter, “The Dying of Deficient Joe.” The silent movie, direct­ed through George Albert Smith in 1900, brings to lifestyles Dick­ens’ char­ac­ter Jo, the go­ing sweep­er from Bleak Space. Pri­or to this in finding, the name of the previous­est identified Dick­ens movie belonged to Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost, which pre­miered in Novem­ber 1901.

Professional­vid­ing extra con­textual content for the movie, the BFI writes:

This trag­ic brief movie is in keeping with the degree professional­duc­tion of Deficient Jo the Pass­ing Sweep­er, which itself adapt­ed one of the impact­ing sto­ries in Dick­ens’ epic nov­el Bleak Space. This brief movie may be very a lot an adap­ta­tion of the degree ver­sion, during which a fol­low-spot recre­at­ed the evening watch­guy’s lamp. As Joe dies, nev­er hav­ing been taught to hope, the sunshine additionally rep­re­sents the redemp­tive gentle of heav­en.

The char­ac­ter of Joe was once pop­u­larised within the nineteenth cen­tu­ry through actress Jen­nie Lee, who toured her in keeping with­for­mance round Europe and the United States. Right here Joe is performed through Lau­ra Bay­ley and the Evening-watch­guy through Tom Inexperienced. Each actors had been reg­u­lar col­lab­o­ra­tors with the Brighton-based movie­mak­er GA Smith (Bay­ley was once his spouse).

You’ll watch the movie, cour­tesy of BFI, above.

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