Among other Christmas gifts, Edgar receives a tool chest containing a little saw. While he is out displaying some of his other presents to the boy next door, little brother Charlie saws up everything in the house, furniture, hats, and at length attempts operations on the cat.


If Christmas movies are snow-globes, then Edgar’s Little Saw is the cracked bauble leaking glitter and sawdust all over the mantel. Shot in the gauzy twilight of silent-era slapstick, this 1923 one-reeler weaponizes innocence: a gift-boxed saw becomes the thin wedge separating fraternity from fratricide, order from an...

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Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.

E. Mason Hopper

E. Mason Hopper
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" If Christmas movies are snow-globes, then Edgar’s Little Saw is the cracked bauble leaking glitter and sawdust all over the mantel. Shot in the gauzy twilight of silent-era slapstick, this 1923 one-reeler weaponizes innocence: a gift-boxed saw becomes the thin wedge separating fraternity from fratricide, order from anarchic farce. Director Edward Peil Jr.—pulling double duty as the authoritarian father—compresses Tarkington’s Midwestern vignette into seventeen minutes that feel like a fever dre..."
Booth Tarkington
United States


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