UTICA — Famed 19th century author Charles Dickens once made an unscheduled 18-hour layover in Utica while heading to performances in Albany, with his unexpected stay at Bagg’s Hotel causing quite a stir among the locals.

Local filmmaker and Oneida County History Center volunteer Dennis Dewey was so fascinated by the story of Dickens’ visit from England in March 1868 that he wrote and produced the film “Mr. Dickens Comes to Utica” to tell the tale.

The public is invited to the movie premiere event at 2 and 6 p.m. Saturday, March 18, at the Oneida County History Center, 1608 Genesee St.

Dewey has been a professional storyteller for 40 years and said he took up filmmaking in his retirement as another way of telling stories. He began work researching the film in December last year. The project took more than 300 hours to complete, with the running time of the finished documentary clocking in at just over 38 minutes. Recreating the scenes recreating the 19th century took some creativity, he said.

“Since Dickens’ visit happened in 1868, there was no movie film and very few photographs — though there were many sketches and paintings of Dickens himself,” Dewey said. “A documentary like this requires images, music, narration and some creative video work. I think of filmmaking as sculpturing in image, motion, color and text.”

He used some clips of early motion picture archives from 10-20 years after the date. Dewey said he also made extensive use of what is called “The Ken Burns Effect” — slow movement across still images. To portray Dickens, Dewey brought in an actor who has for years performed Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” in costume. The Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica was gracious to allow him to film him in the beautiful Fountain Elms mansion, Dewey added.

The film was finished in February.

After the premiere event, the movie will be hosted on the History Center’s website. The date of the premiere is 155 years to the day since Dickens boarded the train in Utica after his overnight stay.

As of now, there are no firm plans to show the film elsewhere, Dewey said. He is in conversation with the MWPAI about a possible showing there in the spring, and is hoping to have an invitation from the Capitol Theater in Rome for a screening as part of their film festival.

He said he thinks the audience will find the film quite entertaining.

“There is a humorous sequence about Dickens’ bad experience in Syracuse, for example, in which he berates the hotel and describes the menu: ‘We had an old buffalo for supper and an old pig for breakfast and I-don’t-know-what for dinner at six,’” Dewey said. “He even skewers the wine: A bottle of Madeira was tried to wash down some buffalo, a tough old nightmare, but the wine displayed an utter absence of grape. We resolved that had we persevered with it, we’d have terminated in colic!”

Dewey said there is also pathos aplenty about Dickens’ financial struggles, his inability to find a legal remedy for the outright theft of his work and his bad first impressions of America on an earlier trip. That visit caused hard feelings on this side of the Atlantic, Dewey explained, and the eventual apology and reconciliation ended with the farewell dinner crowd in New York City leaping to their feet to sing, “God Save the Queen.”

For more information, visit www.oneidacountyhistory.org.