A Christmas Dream

My holiday gift to all of you.
Grandpa played this movie for us grandkids years ago, and today it remains one of my favorite Yuletide films. Until recently I had assumed it was an American production, perhaps directed by George Pal or Charlie Bowers (Grandpas copy bore no credits other than the title), but then by chance I learned from an animation website that it was, in fact, Czechslovakian! Another surprise - its co-animator, Karel Zeman, was also the director of two wonderful feature-length movies I had watched many times on television when I was a kid, "The Fabulous World of Jules Verne" and " Baron Munchausen."

The Czech versions soundtrack was purely instrumental with no dialog or sound effects and no Santa! When MGM distributed the film to American theatres, they replaced the charming score with an overwrought Hollywood concoction, inserted an American-style Santa Claus into the footage (quite cleverly, I must say), and gave the doll a pipsqueaky voice.

The home movie version that Grandpa owned, presented here, was marketed by Castle Films. It was silent, and cluttered with gratuitous intertitles that Ive mostly edited out. I created the soundtrack by splicing together excerpts from a 1950s Boston Pops recording of Orths In a Clock Store.

Czech Credits: Vanocni Sen (Christmas Dream), 1946. Directed and Animated by Karel Zeman and Hermina Tyrlova.

See more movies from my Grandfathers collection at www.webnik.com/homemovies and on this YouTube channel.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Christmas
• Dream
• Vanocni
• Sen
• Karel
• Zeman
• Animation
• Stop
• Motion
• MGM
• Castle
• Films

[AtorTheFlyingEagle]

@Yourmomisnthere Mike Nelson is trashing the great animated work of Karel Zeman? Just wrong.

[NiagraViagra28]

Thank you so much. My sister and I would watch this movie on my dad's 8mm projector with the drop down screen in our living room. I still have the 8mm but seeing it again like this to music was beautiful. Thank you

[gryphon50]

Thank you

[SSegal]

Excellent job on adding the music.  Thanks for posting I'm a Karel Zeman fan, too.

[ph46168]

Somewhere I have this 16mm movie and the projector to show it. THANK YOU for posting this. This brings back some wonderful memories!

[raymondlang]

Great stuff..I still prefer these old stop-motion's to the new computer versions.

[phillyblizzard]

Love this, and remember it too :)

[Onneff69]

Thanks for this. Definitely an artifact from a gentler, kinder time.  "Quaint" to some, I suppose.

[123miloslav]

ahoj, máš pěknou zachovalou kopii A Christmas Dream , ale není původní. Je již upravená pro Ameriku. V originále je název "Vánoční sen". Byl to i můj oblíbený film když jsem byl dítě. (1947) . Autor filmu natočil jěště několik pěkných kultovních typicky českých celovečerních hraných filmů. Doporučuji a zdravím Miloslav z Praha

[Yourmomisnthere]

@Arethia

I saw this on Rifftrax and it inspired me to make a TV Episode out of it where someone throws away that type of doll and when someone's rummaging for the doll, it comes to life!