The Mistletoe Bough (1904)

When The Mistletoe Bough (1924) was made by Percy Stow for the Clarendon Company it had been a Christmas tradition to tell this story for decades – this version of The Mistletoe Bough appears in the Gaumont catalogue for December 1904.
It’s the first in a long line of adaptations of this story for film and it is a nice early example of a gothic tale, filmed with some exterior locations in an ancient castle and some studio sets. The final shot – the big reveal – is missing! It is unfortunately common for the endings of reels of early films to be shortened by progressive use in projection.