A Trap for Santa Claus (1909) User Reviews

A little heavy-handed but I liked it

[preppy-3 · 7/10 · 27 December 2003]

It's Christmas Eve and a man with a wife and two children can't find a job. His wife is heavily depressed as is he. He turns to drink and finally leaves his wife because he's a failure....

It gets better after that but it really pours on the pathos at first. It's not as depressing as it sounds and the second half is very light and cheerful and it all ends on a happy note.

Minor but very enjoyable.

an odd little curio

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 17 November 2006]

I have seen quite a few older silent films and because of this, I could tell that this was a relatively well-made film. The only problem is that the acting style is a bit old-fashioned--even for 1909. There is a bit too much melodrama and over-acting even in an age when this was much more acceptable than it would have been just a decade later. Plus, the film really looks like it could have used more inter-title cards to explain the action. So, a little less over-acting and a few more cards explaining everything would have improved the film.

However, despite these shortcomings, the film STILL is pretty entertaining for the era and tells a complete story of a down-and-out family whose fortunes turn around for the holiday. It is a very interesting curio indeed!

Life Is Hard

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 26 February 2017]

In this little tale, a man has a family, a boy and a girl, and, of course, his wife. There is no work and the family is on the verge of starvation. They have one loafs of bread left and the boy eats the whole thing. The father feels his family is better off without him and takes off. He also seems to have a drinking problem. Then comes great news. The wife's aunt dies and leaves them a bunch of money. They movie to a nice place. It's Christmas Eve and the kids await Santa. They set a trap for him and things go from there. I have to say that those kids were some very strange looking beings, especially the boy. But, of course, for silent films, everything is exaggerated.

Packs Quite a Bit Into a Short Running Time

[Snow Leopard · 16 March 2006]

D.W. Griffith packed quite a bit of material into just a reel or so of film in this holiday-themed short feature. With scenes of domestic strife, domestic comedy, social commentary, melodrama, plus more, there is enough material here for a much longer movie. As a result, it's pretty interesting, although from a technical viewpoint there are a couple of weaknesses.

The setup depicts a financially troubled family, with the father's despair driving him to drunkenness and other problems. The story that follows depends on some rather forced developments, but eventually things come together in an ending that contrasts the father's predicament with the light-hearted antics of his children as they plan "A Trap For Santa". The resolution is upbeat enough to help make up for the more heavy material in the middle.

Like many of the movies from the late 1900s and early 1910s, this feature is a good example of the way that not just Griffith, but many film-makers of the era, were becoming more ambitious in the stories they wanted to tell, putting more and more material into a couple of reels of film, and soon gradually learning how to make longer features. It's also an interesting, if imperfect, movie in itself.

A Static Movie from Christmas 1909 as Griffith was still Learning

[jayraskin · 6/10 · 16 November 2023]

This movie seems like a tragedy where a family breaks up when the father can't find work. He leaves the family in despair because they are starving.

In the middle of the movie the tragedy suddenly ends and it turns more or less into a comedy. The effect of this shift in tone is just jarring and odd for a modern viewer.

The movie was released at Christmas 1909. It was probably shot within a few weeks of that time. Griffith has nearly every shot the same with the feet of the characters cut off, and too much room above the heads. It appears much more primitive than 1903's "Great Train Robbery." It was apparently sometime in 1910 when Griffith learned to make his movies more interesting by varying the distance of the camera from the actors and allowing more depth for the actors to move from the background to the foreground, instead of just left to right.

It is worth seeing mainly for people interested in the development of cinema.

That's Odd

[boblipton · 5/10 · 21 December 2020]

It's nigh unto Christmas and Henry B. Walthall is out of a job, has no money, and is drinking out of someone else's bottle. When he quarrels with wife Marion Leonard, he's had enough. He walks out, leaving a note. Miss Leonard goes to "Emergency Aid" for her and her daughters, but there's nohing available.

Immediately after, she inherits a fortune from her dead mother in time for Christmas.

Griffith whipsaws his audience with the variable tones in this movie, and I am left with a sense of emotional confusion. As, apparently, the sole heir, Miss Leonard was unable to get some money based on her expectations? Was this some secret? Given that, my brain disengaged and I immediately knew how this would all turn out.

Griffith plays a bit with set design here. Above the entrance to the Emergency Aid office, there's a loop of cord that resembles a hangman's noose: surely a foreboding omen. Yet, given the date of release of this short, just in time for Christmas, we can see that Griffith is still piecing together the threads of his techniques. The classic period would begin the following year.

Early Griffith Holiday Film

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 30 December 2001]

A Biograph film.

On Christmas Eve, two children set A TRAP FOR SANTA, with somewhat surprising results...

Film legend D. W. Griffith directed this little film. If it is rather heavy-handed with the pathos - drunken father, desperate mother, hungry children - it is simply an indication that Griffith was learning to master his trade as he went along. Within a few more years he would be at the top of his profession - as would cameraman Billy Bitzer, who photographed this film.

Movie mavens should probably recognize Henry B. Walthall as Arthur, the father & Mack Sennett as an unfriendly bartender, both uncredited.

Al Kryszak provided the score for the video compilation A Christmas Past, in which this film appears.

Holiday Griffith

[Michael_Elliott · 29 December 2008]

Trap for Santa, A (1909)

*** (out of 4)

Heavy drama has an out of work father (Henry B. Walthall) losing his job, turning to alcohol and eventually leaving his family when he feels he has let them down. Time passes and the family has money fall into their laps but the kids plan on setting a trap to catch Santa. The father, not knowing the family has gotten the money, breaks into a rich house not realizing it belongs to his family and of course falls into the trap. This is a pretty good film from the legendary filmmaker that captures two of his sides. One is the moral, overly dramatic side and the other is a more cheerful, happy side. The mixture works pretty well with this tale even through its dramatic side. Walthall turns in a pretty good performance as the father and even Mack Sennett is on hand during a few scenes. While this has more in common with Griffith the drama teacher than Christmas, it's still a nice short worth viewing as it contains several of the director's trademarks.

DWG was a real Santa for kid cinema (web)

[leplatypus · 10/10 · 18 July 2018]

This is my 3rd DWG movie and 2nd with his favorite actor Walthall. Both are full of talent as proved in the movie and both should be remembered for their decisive work and awarded correctly. A bit like Spielberg, DWG is interested in good story and is fit to every genre: here the movie starts like a difficult drama and finishes indeed like a Xmas tale. I like the way the famous american dream is realized: problems solve with huge money (the same in Pacino Danny Collins) but beyond, the most important is kids joy and wife happiness. Like i have already written, with those very short movie, everything moment is essential and the emotion is deeper and bigger than the diluted movies of today! DWG was really exceptional to repeat the performance over and over and it's not pure luck that I keep stumbling over his movies over and over!

May give more than one person a new view of the meaning of the Yuletide

[deickemeyer · 31 January 2015]

Who can tell the story of this film? Only he who has undertaken the task of playing Santa Claus for the children. Yes, and he who has been in the depths of despair because of misfortune, who must see his children go without even the simplest remembrances for the Christmas festival. The trap to catch Santa in this instance worked better than the children suspected. It caught Santa, but it also caught their own father, who. during the depths of despair, to which he had been driven, had wandered away and did not know his family's improved fortunes and entered the window to commit a robbery, falling into the trap his own little ones had set. But he is hastily drawn into another room and dons the Santa Claus suit which the mother had intended wearing herself and the little people are wild with delight when they discover who Santa Claus is in this instance. It is a beautiful Christmas story. It is well told, and there is more than a suspicion of mist about the eyes before it is entirely done. And, after all, it breaks into the glad Christmastide of the year, when all differences and disturbances should be overlooked and forgotten. This story will be helpful and may give more than one person a new view of the meaning of the Yuletide. - The Moving Picture World, December 31, 1909