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Charles Dickens is something of a national treasure in the UK, an artist with words whose prose manages who manages the neat trick of being respected academically while remaining popular with the public; \u201cA Christmas Carol\u201d is one of his most admired and beloved works. So in post-war Britain, it was a bit galling that the 1938 movie adaptation of the novella was a hit and accepted as somewhat definitive. That Reginald Owen version was a distinctly Hollywood thing, a blazingly professional production of the treasured story, but one that captured little of the heart and grit and soul that Dickens had poured into his original writing. 16 years after the first UK attempt at A Christmas Carol and slightly more than a decade after the MGM version, British studio Renown Pictures was ready to reclaim Scrooge back to his merrie olde roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the jump, the definitive version?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Cycling forward through the various movie incarnations of \u201cA Christmas Carol\u201d, it feels like each new film adaptation of the book acts as a direct response to the production that most recently preceded it. If 1935\u2019s Scrooge was a murky, amateur affair, then 1938\u2019s Christmas Carol is a fiercely, relentlessly professional — if overly cheerful — take on things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thus the relatively deep pockets of Renown Pictures were set to clap back on MGM and Reginald Owen. Renown enlisted veteran director Brian Desmond-Hurst and appropriately named screenwriter Noel Langley (who\u2019d been the lead adapter and writer on The Wizard Of Oz, among other impressive credits), both of whom set out to make a movie version of Christmas Carol that would finally hew close to the original spirit and flavor of Dickens\u2019s original work. The company was also able to secure the services of much-respected Scots actor Alastair Sim to play the lead role. Sim, a noted veteran of many Shakespearean stage productions in London and a burgeoning film star besides, would help provide a more grounded and truer take on Old Ebenezer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Spooky factor: 5 Marleys out of 10. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not only do we get perfectly serviceable ghost effects for the era in this 1951 production, we also get a pretty great Jacob Marley as well. Michael Hordern (who\u2019d have a long and successful career performing in acting and voice work) makes for a far more desperate and angry Marley\u2019s ghost than we\u2019ve seen so far. In the book, when Scrooge\u2019s ghostly former partner has had about enough of Ebenezer\u2019s crap about being more gravy than grave, we\u2019re told his scream shakes the house to its foundations. So yeah, it needs to be a big, big scream (not like the muted wimper from 1938), as it has to scare Scrooge into weepy compliance; Hordern gives us that kind of blood-curdling shriek in a performance that sets the bar on all future Marleys. Canonical Factor: 5 Dickenses out of 10. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Quiz time, and no checking IMDB for the answer. Alastair Sim\u2019s services were secured to play the role of Scrooge in 1951\u2019s Christmas Carol, and he\u2019s obviously top-billed in the credits. Now, without looking, tell me what character (or actor playing that character) is second-billed, given that credits placement here was based on number of lines and time on screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bob Cratchit? Great guess. Wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nephew Fred? Sorry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jacob Marley? Nope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And just like that, we\u2019ve shown the main issue with this incarnation of the Scrooge story, the thing that probably prevents this from being THE definitive filmed version of the book. The second-billed actor in the credits based on screen time and lines is Kathleen Harrison, who plays Mrs. Dilber. Who\u2019s Mrs. Dilber, you\u2019re asking? She has a small bit in the book as the charwoman or laundress in the final stave, selling off Scrooge\u2019s personal belongings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How does that happen, exactly, that a bit character in the final third of the book gets more screen time than Bob Cratchit? Apparently one of the goals for screenwriter Langley was to fill in some color about the story\u2019s main character. And so we\u2019re given what almost amounts to an Ebenezer Scrooge biopic for the first two-thirds of the movie, which includes all sorts of stuff that stretches far beyond anything that Dickens had originally written. It\u2019s absolutely true that in the novella, Dickens only hints at some of the events in Scrooge\u2019s past that may have shaped the wretched old man he becomes. Langley builds that all out and then some, in what essentially amounts to Ebenezer Scrooge fanfic at times. Some of all this is rather well done, but for a film with a 90 minute run time, it comes with sacrificing almost anything at all to do with Fred and his wife, and even cuts into some good old fashioned holiday time at the Cratchit home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It also forces the movie into the same kind of perfunctory, too-quick finish that publishing deadlines forced Dickens into when he wrote the original book. Though for some reason on Christmas morning we\u2019re still treated\/subjected to even more of an extended sequence with Mrs. Dilber. Anytime you can detour your story into extended sequences with characters the audience doesn\u2019t care about, you should totally do that. Not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (With all that kvetching aside, the movie does far more accurately convey the tone and feel of Dickens\u2019 original work. And unlike the 1938 Christmas Carol, it manages to hit most of the main plot points with aplomb, rather than chopping them out from fear for audience reactions.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Non Canonical Factor (How good is the stuff they added that isn\u2019t in the original story?): 6 Muppets out of 10.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With all the Scrooge back-story stuff added to this adaptation, there\u2019s obviously a lot of material here that was never part of Dickens\u2019 book. And viewers should be rightfully skeptical of all the rewriting going on here. But some of it not only works, but also (and keep this under your hat) actually improves on the master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Specifically, 1951\u2019s Christmas Carol makes Fan \u2013 who is the younger sibling in the book \u2013 an older sister here. That allows the movie to set the reason for Scrooge\u2019s estrangement from family as being due to the mother dying in childbirth with baby Ebenezer. The father unfairly blames the baby boy for that, and so when the child is old enough, he\u2019s shipped off to boarding school and a hard life, having never experienced the love of a parent. It\u2019s great stuff, completely Dickensian in nature, and if Charles himself had been around to have that idea pitched to him he\u2019d have likely realized that indeed, that was the way to arrange the familial relationship here. (It\u2019s such a good idea, in fact, that a couple of future movie versions of the story would steal that as well.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scrooge Factor: 7 Bah Humbugs out of 10.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Alastair Sim makes for a fine, fine Scrooge. He\u2019s easily the best actor thus far to have played the role in a major screen adaptation, and he gives his Scrooge gravitas when it\u2019s called for and just the right amount of outrageous villainy it requires when that\u2019s needed. Most of all, Sim knows when to be subtle and underplay things; when he rages at his nephew or the charity collectors, he\u2019s not waving his arms around like a cartoon, but instead conveying the conviction and dismissive authority of a darkly powerful little man who is very used to having his way with things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If there\u2019s any weakness to this portrayal, it\u2019s that Sim\u2019s Scrooge appears ready to break down and rethink his life as early as the scene when Old Fezziwig has put up the shutters and started the Christmas party. At times it almost feels cruel that this movie is forcing poor, repentant Scrooge to still be dragged around by the spirits anyway. He\u2019s changed already. Let the old guy sleep!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unintentionally Creepy Tiny Tim Factor: 2 crutches out of 10.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
1951\u2019s Christmas Carol does get penalized a few marks though for a ridiculous attempt to try to portray the phantoms howling through the streets of London that are revealed in the book as Marley departs. Desmond-Hurst tries to use a sort of kaleidoscoping lens thing for this, and the end result is a weird and distracting camera effect that just looks bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n