The Christmas Angel (1904) User Reviews

A melodram without melody

[suchenwi · 7/10 · 20 June 2010]

Unlike all other Méliès films I've seen so far, this one plays it serious - as a melodram. A poor family in a run-down house where snow falls through the broken roof, there's no coal to heat the pathetic little stove, mother is sick, father sends daughter out to beg. Rejected by other beggars, the girl twice collapses to die in the snow... and then, the happy end indicated in the title :) I enjoyed watching this very much. Sometimes a teardrop in the eye makes one feel more involved with a film..

Notable details: an automobile (cardboard prop, though) and an interesting bakery scene where half of the screen is inside, the other half outside, done with a partly missing wall.

Another Méliès Christmas Play

[Cineanalyst · 16 August 2013]

This Christmas play from early cinema magician Georges Méliès is a far more polished offering than was an earlier Christmas film of his, "The Christmas Dream" (Le rêve de Noël) (1900). Whereas that 1900 film lacked a cohesive narrative and was more of just a series of Christmas images, this 1904 film has a firm, even clichéd, melodramatic plot. In its seven tableaux, a girl's parents, apparently, send her out into the cold, snowy winter to beg to help pay their creditor and help with the mother's illness. The child's attempts at collecting alms are thwarted by "professional" beggars and a storefront offers no relief, either. Eventually, nearing death, the kid is rescued by a generous wealthy couple who shower the poor family with gifts. A superimposed Christmas angel examines the scene.

"The Christmas Angel" is nothing exceptional, but at least it has a structure and a simple, if vapid, moral in the short runtime of nine to ten minutes. It's a mostly polished production for its time, with some good artificial snow and decent stage designs, including the home with snow coming in through the roof and a cutout missing wall for the storefront to allow for a lot of street-scene actions simultaneously. In one scene, a stop substitution was used to place painted simulated diegetic light on the set. On the other hand, it's a heavily theatrical and primitive melodrama, and both dissolves and direct cuts were used incongruously as scene transitions.

I Was Moved by This

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 16 November 2017]

I'm a sucker for Christmas movies (the good ones). This is a simple story, but it grabbed me. I grew up quite poor and Christmas wasn't always the greatest time of the year. We faced problems with money and living conditions. Of course, nothing to compare to this family. With a very ill wife, the father sends his daughter out to the churchyard to beg. The people are mean spirited and push her away. When she goes to the bakers, she is thrown out. The only person who is willing to help her is a poor man who cleans the streets. She nearly dies until there is a kind of divine intervention. Yes it's simplistic but effective. The version I watched also had a really interesting piece of music superimposed. It was so haunting.

The Christmas Angel

[Michael_Elliott · 25 August 2011]

Détresse et charité (1905)

*** (out of 4)

aka The Christmas Angel

This isn't a completely successful film but you can't help but see the influence it had on future Christmas tales. The story is pretty simple as a mother lays dying and things get even worse for her when the family can't afford coal to keep the house warm. The husband sends their daughter out to beg for change but she ends up falling into the snow from weakness and dying but then an angel appears. While watching this thing I couldn't help but notice countless things that would appear in future Christmas movies and this includes the ending, which reminded me of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Who knows if Capra or anyone else associated with the story or film had seen this but it's an interesting thing to compare. Another thing that caught my attention was the actual way the story was told because it's over-dramatic moments and the demand that the story prove the greatness of Christ and the way the ending comes reminded me of the type of film that D.W. Griffith would start making a couple years later. If you showed someone this film who was familiar with early cinema and then asked them to guess who made it I'd say the majority would name Griffith. At just around eight-minutes, the film does a nice job getting its message across and what really impressed me were the terrific sets. This is also another example of the director using narration to the explain what was going on in the film.

Exceptional compared to the average film from 1905.

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 20 September 2011]

IMDb lists this as 1905--the "Georges Méliès Encore" DVD says 1904. I am not sure if it really matters, but I thought I'd point out this minor discrepancy.

The film is set on a stage set that looks like a miserable apartment--with snow coming in through the roof and the lady of the house sick in bed as she's ministered to by her husband and young daughter. The father tells the daughter to go out and beg for money--they are starving and need to do something. However, the girl tries her best and comes up with nothing--thanks to professional beggars as well as the uncaring public. Near the end, she is found in the snow--and soon would have expired had it not been for the good Samaritan. And, in a heart-warming finale, the Samaritan brings other good people who treat this wretched family to a wonderful Christmas--with enough meat for six families!

While the story is very simple and a bit old fashioned, it's exceptional for 1905. And, believe it or not, it's practically a full-length film (at only about 10 minutes--a very long film for 1905). And, it's very, very good compared to other films of the day. Worth seeing and heart-warming.

A Touching Little Movie Even Now

[Tornado_Sam · 30 July 2018]

I think the US release title for this Méliès film is very misleading. The angel of the title actually only makes an appearance towards the end for only about ten seconds and has very little to do with the plot of the whole film. In the UK, it was released under the title of "The Beggar Maiden", which is much more fitting.

While there are hardly any special effects in this ten-minute movie, the message and visual look makes up for it. The film begins in the cottage of a poor family who is threatened by the landlord when they discover they can't pay the rent. What's worse, the mother is lying sick in bed. So the father (who almost looks like Méliès himself) sends out their daughter Marie (played by Rachel Gillet, an actress who starred in Méliès's 1901 film "Little Red Riding Hood") to beg for alms. However, no one really seems to care about the little girl's welfare except a poor rag-and-bone man, and she falls unconscious in the snow...

While the plot is extremely simple and the whole film is told in just seven scenes, the message of the film is loud and clear, managing to say more in ten minutes than most movies today could do today in several hours. It's somewhat touching and the message even now still has relevance. Not only that, the sets in the film are absolutely beautiful, and remain as well done as they could be (for just cardboard). Even the one brief special effect we see, the superimposing of the angel, looks very well done especially compared to other Méliès films of the time.

(Note: I'd like to point out that a stencil-colored copy of this film survives but is not currently available online. What's more, two different endings to it were made, one for French audiences and one for American/British audiences. The American/British ending is the one that appears to be surviving as it has the girl get saved at the end, while the French ending had the poor beggar die in the snow and ascend to heaven. It is possible the other, colored print surviving includes the separate ending not available).