Let's start with something seasonal - Dickens' tale of the old miser. Scrooge. Produced in 1951 by Renown Pictures, it features Alastair Sim in the title role - and a grand job he makes of it.
It's Christmas eve as old Scrooge grudgingly gives his fifteen-shilling-a-week-clerk, Bob Cratchett (Mervyn Johns), a day off to celebrate Christmas, with his family.
Scrooge himself scurries home to his dark chambers, but as he huddles over his small fire he is visited by the ghost of his dead partner, Jacob Marley (Michael Hordern). He warns that in the dead of night, Scrooge will be visited by three ghosts.
Sure enough, as he lies in bed the first ghost of Christmas Past - appears and forces Scrooge to relive some incidents from his past.
As a younger man (George Cole) he was devoted to his sister and very much in love with the beautiful Alice. But under the business influence of Jack Warner, he craves the golden idol of money. His sister dies and he loses his beloved Alice.
The ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to the humble home of his clerk where all is merry and even the little lame boy, Tiny Tim, is enjoying himself.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Be leads Scrooge to the cemetery where he sees his own gravestone. No one has a good word for him as his servant, Kathleen Harrison, and undertaker, Ernest Thesiger, pawn his belongings.
His nightmares have good effect, for he wakes a changed man and all ends happily as the carols ring out.
It's a star-studded production as many now well-known faces appear in minor roles.
Entertainment for the whole family, with good print quality and quite exceptional
sound.
One of the most often filmed of all classic tales - its first screen appearance was in the early silent days, its latest as a musical in 1970 - Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is the best loved of all Christmas stories. And its central character Scrooge is one of the most famous in fiction.
When you're making a movie about such a well known character - about whom everyone will have his own ideas - it needs a star who can switch from gloom to broad comedy effectively.
Scrooge (1951) has Alastair Sim as the old meany. And although he's reasonably good in the role, he scores more in the comedy scenes than he does in the drama.
A spookily creaking door and gusts of wind herald the arrival of Marley's ghost to the terrified miser, strongly handled with a nice sense of the macabre by reliable director Brian Desmond Hurst.
The visions of Christmas Past - Scrooge seeing his lost love, and the death of his beloved sister,
Christmas Present - Scrooge given the chance to see the poverty stricken celebrations of his down-trodden clerk Bob Cratchit, are nicely presented with special effects to make the transitions.
In the most powerful sequence of the film, grim and full of black humour, the horrified Scrooge is forced to witness his Future: his housekeeper (Kathleen Harrison) quarrelling with Miles Malleson (provider of more memorable cameo roles in British movies than almost any other player) and a lean undertaker (Ernest Thesiger - remember him as the demented Dr Praetorius in The Bride of Frankenstei0) over what is to happen to Scrooge's clothes after he has died.
Alastair Sim - always a master of eccentric comedy - comes into his own as the newly converted benefactor jovially giving his clerk's family a Christmas treat. Other roles in this lavish Renown production, are played by such stalwarts as Michael Hordern, Jack Warner, George Cole (ideal as the young Scrooge) and the usual dependable band of British actors.
Although stuffy Mervyn Johns is miscast as Cratchit - he lacks the Cockney perkiness of the little clerk - Hermione Baddeley as his wife fits perfectly into the Dickensian scene.
Altogether a pleasant, seasonal entertainment, just right for a family Christmas show.
Picture quality is good in this complete, uncut version. Like other DCR releases, the sound is excellent, Dave West of DCR personally supervising the transfer of the magnetic recording.
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Original distribution: DCR
Films I have this film in my collection my rating: Picture |
The above review was printed in Super Eight Film Review |
One of the best versions of A Christmas Carol. The Super 8 release of 'Scrooge' in the UK by the long gone DCR Films was released complete, a cut-down 18 minute version was released in the US under the title 'A Christmas Carol'
This page was last updated 02 Dec 2002
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