The Miser

The Miser (1908)

aka L'avare

This Georges Melies film is only available in a five-minute fragment. The film starts off with a title card setting up the events. An elderly miser keep all of his money to himself and refuses to help people no matter what they might need. We see him turn away a few people and then portions of the film are missing and we pick up later in the story as the old man is scared of something (apparently someone stole his money). Considering there's a large portion of this film missing, it would be needless to fully judge it on any level. What scenes are here look pretty interesting and clearly you can't help but see a little of A Christmas Carol. I'm not sure how much of the film is missing but we never get to see what sends the old man out into the streets and I'm not sure if there was anything after this either. Still, I'm glad Flicker Alley included these fragment films but lets hope one day the complete thing turns up.