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FILMS UK

BFI archivist discovers Dickens film

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- Bryony Dixon unearths 1901 film The Death Of Poor Joe

British Film Institute (BFI) archivist and silent film curator Bryony Dixon has discovered the world’s oldest surviving Dickensian film. Dixon found G.A. Smith’s 1901 film The Death Of Poor Joe in the national film archive. Up to now, the earliest known Dickens film was 1901’s Scrooge that released after The Death Of Poor Joe. The discovery comes during the BFI’s ongoing celebration of Charles Dickens’ 200th anniversary.

Dixon was researching early Chinese cinema when she came across a catalogue entry referring to The Death of Poor Joe, which she realised might be a reference to the character in Dickens’ Bleak House. Further digging revealed that a film corresponding to the catalogue entry existed but under the title Man Meets Ragged Boy, wrongly dated 1902.

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Dixon said, “It’s wonderful to have discovered such a rare and unique film so close to Dickens’ bicentennial. Not only does it survive but also it is the world’s earliest Dickensian film! It looks beautiful and is in excellent condition. This really is the icing on the cake of our current celebration of Dickens on Screen.”

Smith shot the one-minute long film in Brighton before March 1901. In the film poor Jo is seen at night against a churchyard wall, freezing in the winter snow with his broom. A watchman comes along swinging his lamp and catches Jo as just as he falls to the ground dying; the watchman tries to help but it is too late as he shines his lamp down into Jo’s face, Jo puts his hands together in prayer, taking the lamp for heavenly light as he dies.

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