It’s not Christmas without the story of Ebenezer Scrooge and his visit with three ghosts. There have been numerous film versions of this story. The one below comes to us from 1938 and stars Reginald Owen in the role of Scrooge.
This version is surprisingly good, considering that it was apparently shot in a hurry. (The movie hit theaters just a few weeks after filming stopped.) Originally, Lionel Barrymore was going to play Scrooge but he had to drop out due to ill-health. Reginald Owen stepped in and gave a good performance as the famous miser.
(Barrymore himself would more or less play Scrooge a little less than ten years later in Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life.)
This radio production of A Christmas Carol was originally broadcast on Christmas Eve, 1939. It’s not really Christmas unless you experience at least one version of Charles Dickens’s classic holiday tale and this version features not only Orson Welles providing the narration but Lionel Barrymore playing the role of Scrooge!
Other members of the cast included such well-known Welles’s associates as Everett Sloane (Marley’s ghost), Frank Readick (Bob Cratchit), Erskine Sanford (Fezziwig) and George Coulouris (Ghost of Christmas Present). Two years after this broadcast, Welles, Sloane, Sanford, and Coulouris would all appear in Citizen Kane.
For your listening pleasure, we offer up this journey to the past….
This radio production of A Christmas Carol was originally broadcast on Christmas Eve, 1939. It’s not really Christmas unless you experience at least one version of Charles Dickens’s classic holiday tale and this version features not only Orson Welles providing the narration but Lionel Barrymore playing the role of Scrooge!
Other members of the cast included such well-known Welles’s associates as Everett Sloane (Marley’s ghost), Frank Readick (Bob Cratchit), Erskine Sanford (Fezziwig) and George Coulouris (Ghost of Christmas Present). Two years after this broadcast, Welles, Sloane, Sanford, and Coulouris would all appear in Citizen Kane.
For your listening pleasure, we offer up this journey to the past….
There have been many good film versions of the Charles Dickens novella, A Christmas Carol. Several of them could even be called classics. Everyone from Bill Murray to James Earl Jones to Tori Spelling to Fredric March has taken a turn at playing a version of the famous miser who, after being visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve, changes his ways and becomes the most generous man in London. This holiday season, I watched quite a few old TV shows and I was somewhat surprised to discover just how many sitcoms have featured an episode where one of the characters has A Christmas Carol-like experience.
Though actually, I shouldn’t have been surprised. A Christmas Carol is a universal tale and it’s one that continues to be appealing 174 years after it was originally written. You don’t have to be rich, British, greedy, or even a man to relate to what Ebenezer Scrooge goes through. We’ve all be haunted by the past. We’ve all wondered what we’re missing out on in the present. And we all fear how we’ll be remembered in the future. In fact, I would say that A Christmas Carol is probably as close to perfect you can get. The only problem is that Bob Cratchit’s son is named Tiny Tim and any work of fiction that features a character named Tiny has to be docked a few points.
With all that said, my favorite film version of A Christmas Carol is the 1970 musical, Scrooge.
Scrooge sticks to the original details of the story. Ebenezer Scrooge is played by Albert Finney. (Finney was only 34 when he made Scrooge but was made up so that he looked closer to 120.) The men, women, and spirits in Scrooge’s life are all played by a collection of distinguished British thespians. Edith Evans is the stately Ghost of Christmas Past. Kenneth More is the Ghost of Christmas Present, a decadent figure who drinks wine and travels around with two frightening-looking children. Alec Guinness is a heavily chained Jacob Marley and he plays the role with just the right combination of sarcasm and concern. (“No one else wanted to come,” Marley says when he greets Scrooge at the entrance of Hell.) An actor named Paddy Stone is credited as playing the silent and shrouded Ghost of Christmas Future. Let me just say that the Ghost of Christmas Future always scares me to death whenever I watch Scrooge. I imagine little children in the 70s were traumatized by his skeletal visage.
What sets Scrooge apart is that it has singing and dancing! That’s right, this is a musical version of A Christmas Carol, featuring songs composed by Leslie Bricusse. Now, the overall quality of the songs is open to debate. There’s 11 of them and really, only three of the songs are particularly memorable. (Those songs are: I Like Life, I Hate People, and the Oscar-nominated Thank You Very Much.) But, honestly, who cares? The cast performs them with so much energy and enthusiasm that it’s impossible not to get swept up in it all.
(Admittedly, Albert Finney doesn’t really sing. He just kinda growls the lyrics. But that’s appropriate for the character of Scrooge.)
Scrooge is an outstanding production of a timeless tale. It came on TV at least four different times this holiday season and I watched each time. And I’ll do the same next year!
And as Tiny Tim, who did not die, said, “A Merry Christmas to all! God Bless us, everyone!”
What’s Christmas without Dickens’ classic A CHRISTMAS CAROL, and who better to narrate than jolly old Vincent Price! Enjoy this TV treat from 1949 before you eat your Christmas goose, and “God bless us, every one!”.
For tonight’s vintage Christmas film, allow me to present a 1949 television special. This adaptation of A Christmas Carol is unique for being hosted by none other than Vincent Price!
Yesterday, in order to help some of our readers get into the holiday spirit, I shared a film from 1905. Well, tonight’s film was made four years before The Night Before Christmas! Produced by R.W. Paul and directed by Walter Booth, Scrooge (or Marley’s Ghost) was produced in 1901 and it is apparently the oldest known cinematic adaptation of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.
Of course, when watching, it’s important to remember that this movie was made during the infancy of film. If it seems primitive, that’s because it is. However, it’s also a true piece of history and you know how much I love history!
(Also keep in mind that, while this 6-minute film looks surprisingly good for its age, it’s reportedly incomplete. It also greatly condenses the original story. Let’s just say that Marley ends up doing a lot more in this film than he does in others.)
From 1901, we present to you Scrooge (Or Maley’s Ghost)!
Some people are celebrating nothing and won’t shut up about it.
For me personally, this is my favorite time of year. Admittedly, a lot of it is because I love getting presents. But even beyond that, there’s always been something special about the holiday season.
Last October, for Halloween, we shared some old horror-themed television episodes and short films from the past and the reaction we got was pretty good. So, why not do the same for the month of December? From tonight until the end of 2013, I will be sharing a visions of Christmas past. I hope you enjoy them!
Let’s start things out with this short, silent adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. First released in 1910, this may very well be the very first film adaptation of the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge. It was directed by J. Searle Dawley, who, that same year, also directed the first film adaptation of Frankenstein. The same actor who played Frankenstein’s Monster in that film, Charles Ogle, shows up here as Bob Cratchit. Scrooge is played by Marc McDermott.
As for the film itself, it’s obviously a very condensed telling of Dickens’ famous tale but the special effects are rather impressive for 1910. Even better, there’s no Tiny Tim. Seriously, Tiny Tim always annoyed me.
Through the Shattered Lens 