D. W. Griffith: The Christmas Burglars (1908) 2026 digital restoration Film Preservation Society

 

D. W. Griffith: The Christmas Burglars (US 1908). Florence Lawrence. Photo: Film Preservation Society, Los Angeles.

THE CHRISTMAS BURGLARS (US 1908) prod: American Mutoscope & Biograph Company. dir: D. W. Griffith. story: ?. photog: G. W. Bitzer. cast: Florence Lawrence, Adele De Garde, George Gebhardt, Marion Leonard, Charles Inslee, Harry Solter, Mack Sennett, Arthur Johnson. filmed: 28,30.11.1908 (NY Studio, 8th Ave and 14th Street, NYC). rel: 22.12.1908. copy: DCP, 11'39" (from paper print, 679 ft., 15 fps); titles: ENG. source: Film Preservation Society, Los Angeles (DCP); Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, Packard Campus, Culpeper, VA (paper print). Digital restoration, scanning: 2026. Intertitles written by Film Preservation Society 

    Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone 2026: The Biograph Project.

    Grand piano: Philip Carli.

    Viewed at Teatro Verdi, 3 Oct 2026

Tracey Goessel (GCM 2026): "If An Awful Moment is the nightmare before Christmas, The Christmas Burglars is an exercise in wish fulfillment. It has all the elements melodrama could require: a Christmas Eve setting; a starving widow and her daughter; a hard-hearted pawnshop owner; and a Runyonesque gallery of burglars and thieves. The discovery of a child’s plaintive letter to Santa prompts the store’s denizens to sneak into the tenement with food, gifts, and even a tree. Christmas by way of chloroform. On top of that, we get two city exteriors. What’s not to love? In terms of cinematic progression, Griffith takes the cut-to-what-the-character-is-thinking-about idea that he originated in After Many Years and does it one better. The final shot of the film includes a double exposure of the flinty-hearted pawnbroker, leaning on his counter in happy contemplation of his good deed. Instead of a direct cut to the scene of the celebration, and cutting back, Griffith and Bitzer staged a double exposure. The pawnshop image is shared by the tenement image, which then fades and leaves us back in the shop. Given that the double set of sprocket holes document that this effect was done in a contact printer and not in the camera itself, this feels like a Christmas gift to film historians everywhere."

AA: A Christmas Carol saga in the lineage of Charles Dickens. A formulaic plot gives room to genuine emotion. The little girl's sadness. The mother's desperation. The pawnbroker's shady business in collusion with burglars. Class society. The pawnbroker's change of heart on Christmas, like that of Ebenezer Scrooge. "A heart softened, never truly hard again". The miracle of Christmas. For some, there are no miracles. For others, everything is a miracle. I belong to the latter team. Another Griffith short that resembles a Sunday school play. With a powerful composition and mise-en-scène and certain fascinating images, such as the reflection of street life on a shop window.