The Little Match Girl

As a little girl is daydreaming out the window, her wicked father comes home. It's Christmas Eve. She tells her father that she was thinking about her Grandmother and of how nice Christmas was when she was alive. The father, angry and bitter, tells the girl that she must be out early to sell the matches or she can think about a beating. He tells her she needs to keep her mind on selling the matches and that she cannot come home until every one of them is sold. Then he laments about how, since her momma died, she is more than pain and trouble and is always in the way.

Directed by Richard Bramall, Tom G. Robertson, The Little Match Girl leans on a strong ensemble — Lynsey Baxter, Edwin Brown, Susan Richards — to carry a story that balances spectacle with character.

The film landed with audiences for its craft and performances, and remains one of the most talked-about screen titles of 1974.