Inspired by the popular success of Silent Shakespeare, Dickens Before Sound is a unique collection of early adaptations of perhaps Britain's favourite (and after Shakespeare) most adapted author. This selection ranges from the first extant adaptation, Scrooge; or Marley's Ghost photographed a mere thirty-one years after Dickens' death, to a bonus of the very first Dickensian sound film. Bransby Williams presenting his monologue in the character of Grandfather Smallweed from Bleak House. En route, the development of cinema storytelling will be witnessed as practitioners of this wonderful new art struggle to transform a tale from page to screen. For the first time these films are presented with Neil Brand's newly composed scores and, in the case of Gabriel Grub and The Pickwick Papers, with an entirely experimental attempt to match original words to silent images.
Spoken word performance by Ken Campbell of Dickens' original text over Gabriel Grub and The Pickwick papers
Voiceover commentary by screenwriter Michael Eaton on The Cricket on the hearth
Disc 1:
This disc includes the following films:
1. Gabriel Grub (1878)
2. Scrooge (aka: Marley's Ghost) (1901)
3. The Cricket On The Hearth (1909)
4. Oliver Twist (1909)
5. The Boy And The Convict (1909)
6. Nicholas Nickleby (1912)
7. Pickwick Papers (1913)
8. David Copperfield (1913)
Disc 2:
This disc includes the following films:
9. Oliver Twist (1922)
10. Dickens' London (1924)
11. Grandfather Smallweed (1928).
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