Santa Claus (1898 film)

Santa Claus
Screencap from the film
Directed by	George Albert Smith
Starring	Laura Bayley Harold Smith Dorothy Smith
Release date	September 1898 (1898-09)
Running time	1 min 16 secs
Country	United Kingdom
Language	Silent

Santa Claus is a 1898 British short silent drama film, directed by George Albert Smith, which features Santa Claus visiting a house on Christmas Eve. The film, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, "is believed to be the cinema's earliest known example of parallel action and, when coupled with double-exposure techniques that Smith had already demonstrated in the same year's The Mesmerist (1898) and Photographing a Ghost (1898), the result is one of the most visually and conceptually sophisticated British films made up to then."