A Christmas Carol (1938)
We’re now at the point where many of these movies are out of Public Domain and owned by studios. This version is available for free on HBO Max, if you’d like to watch along! Scrooge is portrayed by Reginald Owen in this version.
First we start off with “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” again and a strange little intro featuring Fred. As he walks to Scrooge’s business, he runs into Tiny Tim and Peter, who are playing by sliding around on an ice patch. Fred agrees to take a message to their father, Bob since he is already heading there. As Fred arrives, he gifts a bottle of wine to Bob, who snatches a glass from Scrooge so they can enjoy it, but they are interrupted by Scrooge himself. In Fred’s dialogue, it’s revealed that Fred is not married, but engaged. Scrooge rejects the charity guys, as usual. Then as Scrooge gives Bob his leave, things take a drastic deviating turn.
Bob runs into a few kids having a snowball fight in the street. Bob joins in and as they play, a snowball misses its target and hits Scrooge on his walk home. It knocks off his hat, which promptly run over by a carriage on the street. Bob is scared and apologetic, but Scrooge will hear none of it. He fires Bob on the spot, and when Bob asks for his final wages that he would be owed, Scrooge says they will cover the cost of his ruined hat, but even that would be a shilling short and he demands Bob give him the shilling owed. I think that might take the cake for the most heartless added Scrooge moment!
We then get a scene of Bob going on a spending spree getting things for his family for dinner. Since he just lost his job, I guess it was supposed to be one of those “I’ve fallen this far, I may as well just go all out” moments, but it doesn’t explicitly say so, so it comes off as kind of irresponsible.
We see Scrooge go home, with the typical doorknocker and visit from Marley’s ghost.
Christmas Past shows up, looking like a young Judy Garland-esque starlet. She takes Scrooge to his youth, where he sees “Fran” instead of “Fan”. No sign of Belle at all.
The Ghost of Christmas Present arrives, looking accurate enough. He takes Scrooge out onto the street, where two different sets of people bump into each other or get into arguments on Christmas Day. The Spirit sprinkles something from his horn onto them, and they immediately stop fighting and become friendly. An odd detail that is mentioned briefly in the novella.
The Spirit then takes Scrooge to church where we see Fred and Bob singing along with a large congregation. (Hark! The Herald Angels Sing…again) We get a scene of Fred and his not-wife, who is named “Bess” in this version. As they walk outside church, they see children sliding on an ice patch for fun, and the priest comes outside to tell the boys it is not proper to do so in front of a church, but the priest himself has fun doing it once they’ve run off. Fred and Bess have a slide themselves and fall in a patch of snow and have a smooch in the middle of the street. I found myself thinking that probably wasn’t very acceptable in Victorian England, but maybe they weren’t that prudish? Scrooge asks the Spirit if Tiny Tim will live, but he barely even saw him yet, so it seems a little premature for him to show that much care.
We then get an overly long Christmas celebration at the Cratchit household. Bob reveals to his eldest daughter that he has been fired, but makes her promise not to tell anyone. Scrooge is taken to Fred’s party, where we see Fred and Bess sneak off to kiss again behind some curtains.
Scrooge proclaims to the Spirit that he loves Christmas now and laughs a little too hard about it. I think it’s good to show that he’s begun to warm up to the idea, but again, this seems a little too early. The Spirit leaves and Scrooge finds himself at what looks like the Cliffs of Insanity from the Princess Bridge and the apparent Ghost of Christmas Future, who looks like a monk. We learn that Tiny Tim has passed and the Spirit shows Scrooge his own grave before he awakens happily.
He gets a boy to buy the Cratchits a turkey, pays the charitable gentlemen his back payments, and then heads to Fred where he whispers a secret in his ear. Fred reveals to Bess that Scrooge has made him his partner and he will now be able to marry her due to his new income.
He then visits Bob’s house, where he gives him his job back and doubles his salary.
My final thoughts on this version are a bit mixed. The acting on all grounds is mostly solid, but we do not get very believable reactions from Scrooge himself to many of the things he sees. After doing a bit of reading, it seems like this version focused heavily on Fred and the changes of his wife to being his fiancee was in order to play up the “romance” of the story, since most popular films had a romantic plot to them at this time. I think most of those parts are just distracting from the real crux of the story and don’t add much of anything, making the overall film weaker. This coupled with a lot of missing scenes from the novella make for just an okay version of the movie.
Scrooge (1951)
This version of a Christmas Carol goes by the title of “Scrooge” in the UK and just “A Christmas Carol” in the US, and it stars Alistair Sims as Scrooge. If you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you can watch it through IMDB here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044008/ (For those who have seen the 2015 movie “Krampus”, this is the version that the main character is watching on TV!)
This version, once again starts with “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” That’s three movies in a row! Surely there must be other Christmas songs from the Victorian era? Either way, we also get some narration taken straight from the beginning of the written story, so we’re off to a good start! We see Scrooge at a business house, where he is leaving early. Some other men ask him why, if he does not celebrate Christmas, is he leaving early. Scrooge remarks that Christmas keeps others from business and the man says that “Ants toil while grasshopper sing and play”, but Scrooge says “An ant is an ant and a grasshopper is a grasshopper, but Christmas is a humbug!” Scrooge is confronted by a man named Samuel Wilkins who owes him money, who begs for an extension. Scrooge rebukes him and continues to his office, scaring some carolers along the way. The charitable guys come on cue and get dismissed. Fred shows up, but strangely Scrooge refers to him as “Nick”. At first I thought it was a deliberate change, but they refer to him as “Fred” later in the movie, so I’m not sure what happened there. This time he is married, as Scrooge mentions that he married against his wishes.
He gives Bob his normal leave and we get a brief interlude where we are introduced to Tiny Tim as he watches toys in a shop window while Mrs. Cratchit buys a goose for the family.
Scrooge takes his meal at the tavern and on the way there, we see a blind man who is led away by his dog that is scared of Scrooge, a description of Scrooge that is briefly referenced in the story, so this version gets some bonus points for detail!
Scrooge makes his way home, and we see the door knocker with a transparent face effect like most of the films have done so far. Where things really differ, is as a frightened Scrooge makes his way to his chambers, the music is genuinely tense and creepy. We begin to hear Marley’s chains and they make a grinding/howling sound that I found rather creepy. I’m glad that this version is embracing the ghost factor here!
I think this is the best version of Marley so far. He acts solemn but offputting and creepy. More than once in his dialogue he lets out a real wailing moan that is pretty terrifying! After he warns Scrooge, he takes him to the window and shows him a number of fellow lost souls who lament the fact that they cannot help a poor woman and her infant in the cold, which is in the original story and is the first time a film showed this moment. The music really swells and sounds like a horror movie score here.
The Ghost of Christmas Past appears and is a small man with white hair, but no light or cap. He takes Scrooge out the window and shows him to himself as a “boy” (but he looks about 20!). Fan shows up and is not a young girl at all, but appears to be about the same age as Scrooge. She mentions that Scrooge will come home forever, and he begs Fan to live forever as she is the only one to show him kindness. A little obvious foreshadowing, I think.
The Spirit mentions that Fan died giving birth to Scrooge’s nephew, and says that Scrooge’s mother died giving birth to him, which is why Scrooge’s father was distant and didn’t care for him. I suppose that means Fan has to be his older sister in this version?
We’re then taken to Fezziwig’s party. We get a good scene of Scrooge realizing that Fezziwig paid very little to make people feel wonderful, and he wishes he could speak to Bob. We’re introduced to “Alice” Scrooge’s love (which is changed from Belle for some reason). He tells her that he loves her because she’s poor, not proud and foolish.
We then get a completely added scene where a man named Mr. Jorkin tries to get Fezziwig to adapt to the new “machine” age and Fezziwig turns him down saying money isn’t everything. Jorkin tries to turn Scrooge to his side and Scrooge agrees with Fezziwig, but sounds unsure.
Now the Spirit takes him to Fan’s death bed, where Scrooge pleads with her not to die. Fan’s final words are her asking Scrooge to take care of her newborn son.
Time moves again and Scrooge has quit Fezziwig’s to join Mr. Jorkin, who introduced him to a young Jacob Marley. Scrooge and Marley talk about how the world is violently changing and one must steel themselves to survive it. Fezziwig is seen going out of business, with Scrooge and Marley taking over. One of the employees asks if he can stay, to which Marley tells him he can stay for one less shilling a week. Old Fezziwig leaves saddened as Scrooge watches on.
“Alice” breaks up with Scrooge, with some pretty accurate dialogue to the story.
Now we get a scene of an older Scrooge and Marley, who sit with a few gentlemen who charge Mr. Jorkin with embezzling funds from his own company and being bankrupt. Scrooge and Marley offer to pay off the amount embezzled and save the company and shareholders, but only if they are awarded a controlling interest of 51%.
Time moves again and a woman arrives at this office, who tells Bob Cratchit that Jacob Marley is close to death and if Scrooge wants to visit, he should do it immediately. Bob delivers the message, but Scrooge says he does not close until 7:00 and will not visit until after. Geez, Scrooge!
Scrooge does visit a bed-ridden Marley, who tells him with difficulty that they were both wrong and to save himself. Scrooge asks from what, but Marley dies before telling him.
One more shadow, the Spirit warns. At this point, I thought “Really?!” We’ve spent more than enough time in the past! But the Spirit shows Scrooge signing over Marley’s house and possessions to himself and he says Scrooge had no pity, but the face of a wrench, grasping, covetous old sinner. At least we got some Dickens descriptions out of it.
Finally Scrooge wakes up and is greeted by the Ghost of Christmas present, who looks very accurate! A bearded giant with a smile and robes. He accuses Scrooge of not keeping the child of Bethlehem in his heart and will show him those that do. He takes him to a mine where people are singing in celebration (no lighthouse or boat though!) Next we finally catch up with the Cratchits, where Bob announces that his son Peter is old enough to start a job where he will bring money to the household. We get Scrooge asking about Tiny Tim’s fate and the toast to Scrooge, mostly accurate to the source material stuff!
Finally, we see Fred’s party where Scrooge is being discussed and Fred mentions how sorry he feels for him. Beyond my comprehension, Topper shows up to be flirty.
We are then moved to what appears to be a soup kitchen, where present-day Alice is tending to the poor who live there. Scrooge is moved and asks if he can be seen, but the Spirit tells him that like in life, he has cut himself off from others. The Spirit pulls back his robes to show him Ignorance and Want. Scrooge asks if they have no resources and the Spirit mocks his words of “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”
As he runs from the echoing words, he is stopped by the hand of the Ghost of Christmas Future. For the second time in this version, Scrooge pleadingly tells the Spirit he cannot change because he is too old. The camera pulls back to show that the hand belongs to a dark-robed figure, probably my favorite interpretation so far. It looks like a Ring Wraith from Lord of the Rings (in a good way!) It also has a cool gliding effect as it moves.
We see the Cratchits grieve for Tiny Tim, then a cut to Old Joe who goes through his possessions are normal, then we see the businessmen who discuss going to someone’s funeral (if lunch if provided!) Scrooge notices that this is where he usually ate, and is put off that he does not see himself (Starting to add up, huh, Scrooge?) He’s taken to his own grave and falls on the stone, where he awakens in his own bed.
This version brings in a housekeeper (Mrs. Dilbur, who was one of the ladies selling things to Old Joe) to give Scrooge his breakfast so he has someone to talk to. He comically bowls her over in happiness while she screams. He tries to stand on his head and she screams down the stairs in fright, while he catches up to her and offers her money as a present and raises her salary.
Scrooge yells to the boy on the street, who he asks to buy the turkey. We cut to the Cratchits who marvel at the turkey and Tiny Tim expresses that he thinks it was Scrooge who sent it, but doesn’t know why. Bob asks him why Scrooge would do such a thing and Tiny Tim suggests “Christmas”.
Scrooge arrives at Fred’s party, but when he greets him, he calls him Fred finally! He dances with Mrs. Fred and rushes to his business where Bob shows up late and he plays his prank, raising his salary. A narrator finishes off with the final words from the story, as Scrooge picks up Tiny Tim in happiness.
After following up with some reading, I found that many consider this to be one of the best filmed versions of a Christmas Carol. I certainly think it is the best one so far. Alistair Sims does a really excellent job as Scrooge. At first I thought his “mean” acting was a little flat. He comes off as more annoyed than rude, and I was put off by that. But as soon as we get to the ghosts, his terror, sadness, and repenting are all really wonderfully done. When he turns his life around, his Christmas joy seems genuine and infectious.
Much of the dialogue is accurate to the novella and this version has a creepier tone than previous ones do. I found some reviews from critics at the time that disliked the film because it would be too frightening to children! It’s also interesting how much ten years of difference in films can make. I pointed out that the score is more unique and involved here, but the camera work is as well, with some interesting angled shots instead of just seeming like it’s a filmed version of a play.
My only complaints would be the added scenes involving Mr. Jorkin and Marley’s death. While they show more of Scrooge becoming cold-hearted and ruthless, the few other scenes we normally get do that just fine on their own. Marley’s death where he tries to warn Scrooge is a sort of rehash of what he says as a ghost, so there is little added there as well. None of it is boring or poorly acted, but it just doesn’t seem necessary except to lengthen the film. The inconsistent naming with “Nick” and “Alice” is a little odd, but it doesn’t really change anything.
I did notice that we never get a resolution to Samuel Wilkins (the man who owed Scrooge money) and we never see Scrooge make a donation to the charitable guys either! But I suppose we can fill in the blanks since we know he is reformed.
Regardless of my nitpicking, this movie was the highlight for me so far. Next up I’m looking at a made for TV version from 1954 and then onto the first animated adaptation, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.
Thanks for reading and merry Christmas!
