A 10-minute 'Christmas Carol'? Early holiday silent films with live music on Sunday, Dec. 14 at Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H.

A scene from Thomas Edison's early version of 'A Christmas Carol' (1910), which runs all of 10 minutes.

Alas, there's no silent film equivalent of 'It's a Wonderful Life' (1946), the Christmastime classic starring Jimmy Stewart and directed by Frank Capra.

But there are some films from a century ago that make use of the holiday setting to good effect. 

For comedy, there's Charley Chase in 'There Ain't No Santa Claus' (1926), or Laurel & Hardy trying to sell Christmas trees door to door in 'Big Business' (1929).

For drama, there's Tod Browning's 'The Unholy Three' (1925), an extremely twisted Lon Chaney crime thriller made all the more twisted by taking place at Christmas.

On Sunday, Dec. 14 at 2 p.m. at the Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H., we'll take a peek at a selection of holiday-themed films from the silent era to see what people were watching before 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer' mesmerized us all starting in 1964.

Call it a program of "B.R." cinema. (That's "Before Rudolph.") And yes, it includes such oddities as early short versions of 'A Christmas Carol' and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas,' as well as a Mary Pickford drama with a heart-warming holiday ending.

It's a great way to take a break from the hectic holiday season and look at things a little differently. More info in the press release below. In the meantime, Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all, and to all a good silent night!

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Mary Pickford stars in 'Tess of the Storm Country' (1922).

MONDAY, DEC. 1, 2025 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

'Christmas Past' silent film program at Town Hall Theatre on Sunday, Dec. 14

Celebrate the season with family-friendly holiday classics from a century ago, brought to life with live musical accompaniment

WILTON, N.H.—What did people watch before special holiday TV programs such as "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "A Charlie Brown Christmas" made their debut in the 1960s?

See for yourself with a special program of holiday classics from way back during the silent film era, all accompanied by live music.

Included will be the first-ever film versions of such popular tales as 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas,' the poem by Clement C. Moore; each are more than a century old and less than 10 minutes long.

The family-friendly program will be presented on Sunday, Dec. 14 at 2 p.m. at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.

The program is free and open to the public; a donation of $10 per person is suggested to support the Town Hall Theatre's silent film programming.

Live music will be provided by Jeff Rapsis, a New Hampshire-based silent film accompanist who performs regularly at screenings around the nation.

The program will be highlighted by a screening of 'Tess of the Storm Country' (1922), a full-length drama starring Mary Pickford that features a special Christmas-oriented ending.

 

Mary Pickford in a lighter moment from 'Tess of the Storm Country' (1922).

"Even in the early days of cinema, the movies helped popularize classic holiday stories," Rapsis said. "So it's a real treat for us to turn back the clock and see where the tradition of holiday movies and TV specials first began."

The program will include the first known movie versions of 'A Christmas Carol' (1910) and 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' (1905).

The films each run less than 10 minutes long and were both produced as novelties by Thomas Edison, the inventor credited with pioneering the motion picture.

'Tess of the Storm County' (1922), a full-length feature, has been hailed as among Mary Pickford's best pictures.

The film tells a story of conflict between residents of a poor fishing village who live near the estate of a wealthy family.

As the feisty daughter of a village leader who is unjustly put in jail, Pickford plays a key role in a melodramatic plot that takes many surprising turns.

Pickford, a pioneering film superstar, was a major force in early Hollywood, helping establish the United Artists studio and serving as a founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which gives out the annual Oscar awards.

However, Pickford's films receive comparatively little attention today, in part due to the myth that Pickford often played wholesome and traditional female characters that conformed with society's expectations at the time.

In truth, Pickford's best movies often featured her in roles that required her to take action, challenge authority, and play strong roles uncommon for a woman of the era.

The "Christmas Past" Program at the Town Hall Theatre will give local audiences a chance to experience silent film as it was meant to be seen—on a large screen, with live music, and with an audience.

"All those elements are important parts of the silent film experience," said Rapsis, who improvises a movie's musical score live as it screens. "Recreate those conditions, and the classics of early Hollywood leap back to life in ways that can still move audiences today."

Rapsis performs on a digital keyboard that reproduces the texture of the full orchestra and creates a traditional "movie score" sound.

Critics review 'Tess of the Storm Country':

"The most insistently moving picture ever made, its climax is the most stunning visual event ever arranged for a film comedy."
—The New York Times

"The reason to watch is Pickford's elfin grace; she is at her criminally cutest here. Tess boasts rapturous pictorialism and an all-stops-out-climax."
—Richard Corliss, Film Comment

A 'Christmas Past' silent film program featuring Mary Pickford in 'Tess of the Storm Country' (1922) will be shown at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H. on Sunday, Dec. 14 at 2 p.m. 

The program is free and open to the public; a donation of $10 per person is suggested. For more information, call (603) 654-3456. 

 

An ambitious two-page trade journal spread promoting 'Tess of the Storm Country' (1922). Right-click to enlarge the image to see more detail.
 

 

Calling all golfers! See 'The Apple Tree Girl' (1917) on Sunday, 7/30 at Town Hall, Wilton, N.H.

A promotional still for 'The Apple Tree Girl' (1917).

Next up: on Sunday, July 30, I'll accompany 'The Apple Tree Girl' (1917), a rare surviving feature-length film from Thomas Edison's studios.

Screening is at 2 p.m. at the Town Hall Theatre in Wilton, N.H. 

It's part of our "Unknown To Be Shown" series of silent films at the Town Hall Theatre, which has been showing movies since 1912. 

But over the years, not all films have played Wilton. So the series is our attempt to catch up and ensure the local movie-going public gets a chance to see these titles on the big screen.

One thing about 'The Apple Tree Girl' is that it includes scenes of competitive golfing as practiced 116 years ago. There's Shirley Mason sporting her best plaid skirt while playing for the championship.

I've found that early films can be of interest to non-cinephiles if they show past practices in various areas of human endeavors. 

A good example is 'Speedway' (1929), an otherwise routine MGM drama that's of interest to auto buffs because it was filmed on location on the original track of the Indianapolis 500.

In 'The Apple Tree Girl,' we get scenes on the golf as it was played during World War I. In areas like thing, audiences today, all this time later, often find it interesting to not what has changed—and what hasn't.

So: calling all golfers!

More details in the press release below. Hope to see you there as we revive this 116-year-old chestnut!

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Shirley Mason stars in 'The Apple Tree Girl' (1917) from Thomas Edison.

MONDAY, JULY 24, 2023 / FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Jeff Rapsis • (603) 236-9237 • jeffrapsis@gmail.com

Rare feature film, 'The Apple Tree Girl' from Thomas Edison, to screen at Town Hall Theatre

• Drama featuring forgotten star Shirley Mason to be shown on Sunday, July 30 with live music as part of 'Not Known To Be Shown' series

• Town Hall Theatre patrons contributed to recent crowd-funding effort to digitally scan sole surviving print held by U.S. Library of Congress

WILTON, N.H.—One of the last feature films produced by motion picture pioneer Thomas Edison will return to the silver screen this month for a rare revival.

'The Apple Tree Girl' (1917), a drama starring Shirley Mason, will be shown on Sunday, July 30 at 2 p.m. at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.

Admission is free, with a suggested donation of $10. Live music will be provided by silent film accompanist Jeff Rapsis.

The screening is part of a series of early films that never played at the Wilton venue when originally released.

The 'Not Known to be Shown' series runs through October and features obscure dramas, comedies, and adventure flicks from the silent era.

"In putting together this series, we wanted to give audiences a chance to see some rarely screened titles from the first years of motion pictures," Rapsis said.

"Also, they're all movies I've never scored before," Rapsis added. "So it's also a chance to work with 'new' material, although the films themselves are about 100 years old," Rapsis said.

In 'The Apple Tree Girl,' Shirley Mason stars as Charlotte Marlin, a shy young woman who grew up on a Connecticut farm known for an apple tree known to change color.

After losing her parents, Charlotte moves in with her aunt. After experiencing unrequited love, Charlotte resolves to be liked by all, achieve fame, and marry a millionaire.

In her pursuit of fame, she takes up golf, eventually winning a prestigious tournament. But then an unexpected turn of events forces Charlotte to confront her true feelings.

The film was based on a story by George Weston published in the Ladies Home Journal.

Shirley Mason was a popular—and busy—star of early cinema; 'The Apple Tree Girl' was one of 17 films in which she appeared in 1917 alone.

'The Apple Tree Girl' was directed by Alan Crosland and shot in rural Connecticut. It co-stars Raymond McKee, Joyce Fair, Edward Coleman, and Jessie Stevens.

'The Apple Tree Girl' is notable as one of the last films produced by inventor Thomas Edison, who helped create the technology to produce and exhibit motion pictures.

Starting in 1894, the Edison company produced more than 1,200 films to feed the public's growing appetite for motion pictures.

Most Edison films were short subjects made before feature-length films became popular in the mid-1910s.

Edison tried to keep up, eventually producing 54 full-length features; 'The Apple Tree Girl' is one of only a handful that survive.

While most film production had moved to southern California by the mid-1910s, Edison's studios remained in the New York City area, where the inventor's sprawling operations were headquartered.

Critics point out that Edison's films began to lag behind the California-based competition; the inventor ceased filmmaking operations in 1918.

The sole surviving 35mm print of 'The Apple Tree Girl' is archived at the U.S. Library of Congress. A digital transfer was made in 2022 via a Kickstarter campaign to which Town Hall Theatre patrons donated.

The Kickstarter campaign was organized by film buff Edward Lorusso, a Maine resident who has coordinated the digital scanning of many one-of-a-kind film prints.

"Because of the successful Kickstarter effort, Town Hall Theatre film fans can take satisfaction that they helped get 'The Apple Tree Girl' transferred to digital media so it could once again be seen and enjoyed by all," Rapsis said.

Upcoming films in the Town Hall Theatre's 'Not Known to be Shown' series include:

• Sunday, Aug. 20, 2 p.m.: 'Beau Brummel' (1924) starring John Barrymore. Opulent silent drama about the rise and fall of the famous London gentleman, a commoner who circulates in royal circles due to his influence and sartorial prominence.

• Sunday, Aug. 27, 2 p.m.: 'The Divine Lady' (1929) starring Corrine Griffith. Frank Lloyd won the 'Best Director' Oscar for this romantic melodrama about British naval hero Horatio Nelson's romantic adventures.

• Sunday, Sept. 17, 2 p.m.: 'Eagle of the Night' (1928) starring Frank Clarke, Shirley Palmer. An inventor creates a new muffler for noisy airplane engines, but the bad guys are out to steal the breakthrough and put it to evil use.

• Sunday, Oct. 8, 2 p.m.: 'The Red Kimona' (1925). A small-town girl finds escape from her cruel home life in the arms of a handsome stranger, a situation that leads her to work as a prostitute in New Orleans.

‘The Apple Tree Girl' (1917) starring Shirley Mason will be screened on Sunday, July 30 at 2 p.m. at the Town Hall Theatre, 40 Main St., Wilton, N.H.

Admission is free; a donation of $10 per person is suggested to help defray expenses. For more information, call (603) 654-3456.