The Night Before Christmas (1913)

Wladyslaw Starewicz is one of the greatest pioneers of stop motion animation, and one of the most important animation directors (and I'd argue directors of any kind) to come out of Russia. He was also one of the first film makers to prove that animation could be art, and he was a co-director, co-writer, cinematographer, art director and animator on the first feature to be done completely in stop motion animation, The Story of the Fox (Which by the way is a masterpiece). He also directed many of the best stop motion animated short films of all time, such as The Cameraman's Revenge, The Frogs Who Wanted a King, The Mascot, and The Insects Christmas. What is interesting about The Night Before Christmas though is that it is one of the director's very few forays into live action film.

The Night Before Christmas is a very charming film. The humor is spot on the acting is good, and the whole film has a unique charm to it. However this film at a mere 41 minutes (two minutes less and it would have been a short instead of a feature) feels like it should have been longer to flesh out the characters, and story more. The look of the film is more dated than the director's animated films, but it still does feature some amazing animated effects, that are the visual highlight of the film. This is a very good film that despite not being quite up to the standard of his animated work is still well worth watching.

The critics of the time praised this film, some calling it one of the great works of the Russian cinema.

-Michael J. Ruhand