The Death Of Poor Joe
The BFI has just discovered the world’s oldest surviving Dickensian film, The Death of Poor Joe, UK 1901, dir. G.A.Smith the day after the 200th anniversary of Dickens birth celebrated at BFI Southbank and around the world. The discovery was made by BFI silent film curator Bryony Dixon whose research reveals this to be the earliest film made featuring a Dickensian character.
Until now the earliest known Dickens film was Scrooge or Marley’s Ghost (1901), currently on nationwide release from the BFI National Archive and it remains the earliest direct adaptation.
The Death of Poor Joe will screen as a special addition to a programme of Dickens: pre-1914 Short Films 9th March & 23rd March, BFI Southbank as part of the Dickens on Screen screening series which continues until 23rd March.
Bryony Dixon was actually researching early films of China when she noticed a catalogue entry referring to a film called The Death of Poor Joe which she instantly realised might be a reference to a character in Bleak House.
Archivists routinely check for any surviving copies of films they have come across as a title reference with little hope that the film actually survives as the majority of films made in this period have been destroyed. On checking the database Bryony Dixon discovered that the film was listed as being in our collections under an alternative title of Man Meets Ragged Boy, wrongly dated c1902, and hitherto unknown.
Bryony 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 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."
The film has been attributed to G.A. Smith and is reckoned to have been shot in Brighton in early 1901. It came into the BFI collections in 1954 as part of a group of films from a collector in Brighton who had known G.A. Smith.
It depicts the Dickens character ‘poor Jo’ the crossing sweeper from Bleak House, one of a number of pitiable child figures (Smike, Oliver, Little Nell or Tiny Tim) and he is arguably the most helpless and poignant of all Dickens’ child deaths.
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.
The film conflates two stories: it has similarities to Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Matchgirl which has a child die in the snow while fantasising about the warmth she so dearly needs; and Dickens’ story of Jo from Bleak House which has similar pathos (but no snow). The Bleak House Jo collapses at the gates of the grim Tom-all-alone’s Cemetery but is carried inside George’s Shooting Salon.
It is interesting that Jo in this film (it is spelt Joe in the catalogue) is played by a woman, possibly one of the Bayley sisters (Laura Bayley was Smith’s wife), well known pantomime performers from Brighton.
The film, which is just one minute long, was issued for sale in the Biokam catalogue sometime after the launch of the equipment itself in 1901. The Biokam device was a combined camera/projector for the amateur market using 17.5mm film.
The films were almost certainly made by pioneer filmmaker G.A. Smith who was working for the Warwick Trading Company who marketed the Biokam at that time. The original collector believed that this was one of G.A. Smith’s films which the filmmaker re-purposed for the Biokam.
The film will be screened as a special late addition to the programme of Dickens: pre-1914 Short Films 9th March & 23rd March, BFI Southbank.
Tagged in Charles Dickens