For many there
is really only one version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol; 1951’s Scrooge,
affectionately known as the ‘Alastair Sim
version’ and directed by Brian Desmond Hurst. In Britain there was already
a longstanding tradition of renaming Dickens’ dark and brooding novel for stage
and screen adaptations. But in America the tale had not been told on film since
MGM’s 1938 frothy and featherweight adaptation starring Reginald Owen as the
rather curmudgeonly skinflint Ebenezer Scrooge. In America the 1938 version was
a resounding success. But in Britain it was frowned upon as something of a
bastardization of Dickens’ original text – MGM’s zeal for ultra-glamor and its
need to interject themes and vignettes not in the novel, ultimately interfering
with Dickens decidedly more bleak authorship. Given A Christmas Carol’s box office success in 1938 it remains a minor
curiosity that the story was not resurrected more often on the big screen in
the United States.
Indeed, when
Renown Picture’s 1951 version debuted on the other side of the Atlantic it was
not well received by either critics or audiences. Yet, its reputation has
steadily grown over the years, particularly with purists and Dickens aficionados.
Viewing Scrooge today one is
immediately dumbstruck by two impeccable aspects of its craftsmanship: first,
and paramount is Alastair Sim’s sublimely poet and, at times, painfully dark
regeneration of the misanthrope as the very embodiment of the Christmas spirit,
and second, the gutsy verisimilitude in Noel Langley’s rich and evocative
screenplay that not only parallels the bone-chilling darkness of Dickens
classic but also mirrors some of the social angst befalling a postwar U.K.
One of
Britain’s most admired farceurs, Alastair Sim had largely made his reputation
playing loveable fops and delightfully obtuse wits who viewed the world ever so
slightly askew. He was a master at the double take and the reaction shot – both
serving him well in his varied and multi-layered portrait of the penny-pinching
miser. In Sim’s Scrooge we have a
curious, yet, not altogether immediate – although ever-present – tender sadness.
For the first and possibly only time on film, an actor has made the serious
attempt to analyze this character as more than just an embittered demigod who
suffers a minor breakdown and major epiphany on the eve before Christmas Day. And Sim’s manages something greater than even
this: a sort of fiery transformation that is so satisfyingly original, so
utterly believable to life as well as true to Dickens himself, that he becomes
not merely the definitive Ebenezer Scrooge but the essence of the universal
fallen man, reborn into a new and perhaps brighter world. Such is the
understated note of optimist interjected at the very end of the film: not
nearly as celebratory as it remains enquiringly compunctious.
Scrooge was produced at the end of a golden period in British
cinema. Only a few years prior to its release director David Lean had brought
forth definitive versions of Great
Expectations and Oliver Twist,
each unapologetically extolling the darkness of Dickens original masterworks.
But the renaissance in British culture was further sparked by a postwar
exhibition that brought together the nation’s pride in both its heritage as
well as future technologies. Viewed today, Scrooge
saddles that juncture in the country’s 20th century evolution
like a peepshow into two past histories. The first and most obvious is Dickens
1843 reality: bleak and interminably expressionist with its gothic trappings
and stark reflections of an imperfect and socially unjust world, where its caustic
protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge can refer with a straight face to the
filth-ridden workhouses and abominable prison conditions as plausible refuges for
the poor.
But Scrooge is also a contemplation on
Britain’s place in the world after the war; its social commentary on the
welfare state and its utterly terrifying depiction of ‘ignorance’ and ‘want’ as
two of mankind’s own self-destructive children (hidden beneath the elegant
robes of the ghost of Christmas Present) foreshadowing the rights and freedoms
being contested in Britain’s House of Parliament at that time, the same year
the conservatives defeated the labor party to gain control of government and
make sweeping reforms that set the country’s path onto a decidedly different
course.
Noel Langley’s
screenplay does an incredible job of marrying these varied ruminations into a
cohesive and remarkably faithful adaptation of its source material. Yet,
Langley too indulges in some minor creative license, tampering with Dickens
text to expand the role of the charwoman and also interject a completely new
character, Mr. Jorkin (played with inimitable aplomb by Jack Warner) into the
proceedings to provide a briefly psychoanalytic cohesion into Scrooge’s
backstory. Yet, these alterations do not
dampened the mood or even dilute the impact of the story. On the contrary, they
only serve to enhance it.
We first meet
Ebenezer Scrooge (Alastair Sim) as he is leaving the London stock exchange on a
frigid Christmas Eve. The wicked old gargoyle is already in a foul mood as he
admonishes a homeless man on its steps, trudging with heavy feet and even
heavier heart down some decidedly dark and very isolated city streets, past a
trio of carolers whom he pushes aside. Arriving at his office Scrooge is
confronted by a pair of collectors for the poor (Noel Howlett and Fred Johnson).
He instructs both men that if the poor require help let them look to the prison
wards and workhouses for their sustenance and survival. They shall receive no philanthropy from him.
Scrooge’s
nephew Fred (Brian Worth) arrives, warmly greeting his uncle’s put upon accountant,
Bob Cratchit (Melvyn Johns) before hurrying into Scrooge’s office to invite him
over for Christmas dinner. Scrooge rejects the invitation outright but harbors
a deeper resentment toward Fred, whom he speciously blames for the death of his
beloved sister, Fan (Carol Marsh) because she died giving birth to him. From
this rather dreary debut we segue to a moment of pure joy as Cratchit’s
youngest child, Tiny Tim (Glyn Dearman) ogles a sumptuous store display of
Victoriana animated toys. His sheer delight is momentarily dampened as the
shopkeeper removes a large sailboat from the window; a gift Tim might have
enjoyed for his own if only the Cratchits were not so damn poor. Regardless of
their relative poverty or his crippling polio, Tim is a resilient boy, imbued
with positivism for the immediate future – the modest Christmas feast and all
too brief time to be spent with his father.
After
discharging Bob for the evening, Scrooge retires to his home. He is greeted by a
strange hallucination; a disembodied head dangling before his door knocker.
Scrooge is next visited by the ghost of his dead partner, Jacob Marley (Michael
Hordern) – perhaps, the most ghastly spirit of the evening. For in his chains
and heavy padlocks, his head bundled in a tired old rag, Marley forewarns of a
terrible end for Scrooge, shrieking in painful anguish. He reveals to his old
partner a purgatory brimming with phantoms that, in life, were unable to do the
necessary good to save them from their fateful eternal suffrage. Yet Scrooge is unmoved by Marley’s pleas and
thus Marley commissions the arrival of three spirits to illustrate the error of
Scrooge’s ways for him in more concrete ways.
The first, The
Spirit of Christmas Past (Michael Dolan) takes Scrooge (now played by George
Cole) back to his youth; exiled inside a private school because his own father
had blamed him for the death of his wife during childbirth. Fan finagles a
truce between Ebenezer and his father, resulting on one of the merriest
celebrations Scrooge can recollect. But the divine escapism of these hours is
short lived indeed. We move onto a doomed courtship; Scrooge ultimately bungling
his one chance at romantic happiness with the pure of heart, Alice (Rona
Anderson). Instead, he is lured away, along with Marley (played in youth by
Patric McNee) from his benevolent employer, Mr. Fezziwig (Roddy Hughes) into
the service of the more spurious embezzler, Mr. Jorkin (Jack Warner). Here too, screenwriter Langley is intent on
extolling by comparison the Britain of days gone by with its then present;
Fezziwig’s honest independent small business owner no match for the march of progress,
depicted as corrupting influence by Jorkin.
With the
arrival of The Spirit of Christmas Present (Francis de Wolff) Scrooge is
introduced to the way his current age celebrates the holidays. We are shown
glimpses of Fred and his wife (Olga Edwardes) entertaining an assemblage of
dear friends, sharing a laugh at Ebenezer’s expense. A more humble pilgrimage
is made to the Cratchit’s abode where Scrooge is startled to discover the true
meaning of Christmas thriving, despite obvious hardships the family face. But
the Spirit of Christmas Present has a more ominous message for Scrooge,
revealing to him ‘ignorance’ and ‘want’; the perils of mankind trapped in the
embodiment of two blind and emaciated children hidden beneath his robes.
Haunted by
this vision, Scrooge is confronted by the Spirit of Christmas Yet To Come (C.
Konarksi); a ghostly apparition cloaked in grim reaper’s attire, pointing its
bony finger toward the graveyard where a headstone with Scrooge’s name has already
been prepared in the frozen ground. Scrooge pleads with the spirit to show him
no more and, having been brought to his knees with this final and very concrete
understanding, awakens safe in his bed at the dawn. Hurrying into the streets,
Scrooge rejoices at the opportunity to illustrate his reformation to those he
has wronged, including Bob Cratchit and his family and his nephew Fred, whom he
pleasantly startles with his arrival for Christmas dinner. Scrooge’s heart has experienced
a most miraculous conversion, one that will presumably satisfy the spirits and
alter that future shown to him.
Scrooge (a.k.a. A Christmas Carol) is a very
sobering melodrama that owes much more to the gothic novel or American film
noir than the traditional lighter than air fare usually associated with the
Christmas holidays. C.M. Pennington-Richards’ stark cinematography evokes the
bleakness of Dickens to a tee; only flashing us several welcomed moments of
lightness that act as a visual counterbalance, but also heighten the overall
reality of Scrooge’s world by comparison and contrast. In Britain, Scrooge garnered immediate critical praise and was a well-received
by its audience.
But in America
it was unduly and unfairly criticized; denied from having its premiere at Radio
City Music Hall, despite a lucrative overseas distribution deal with United
Artists, precisely for its overriding dreariness and relatively downtrodden
narrative. In truth, Scrooge is a
mostly desolate exercise – but so fascinatingly true to Dickens that one cannot
help but admire its meticulous craftsmanship. Leonard Maltin perhaps said it
best when he declared that Scrooge is
a film “too good to be shown only at Christmastime.”
Indeed, removed from its holiday trappings Scrooge is an exceptionally powerful piece of film making, with
most of the plaudits rightfully going to Alastair Sim’s towering achievement.
Sim is Scrooge,
in all his unrepentant austerity, brought to heel at the strength of sentiment
and his own destiny. We can believe in Scrooge’s conversion, not so much for
what he has experienced through the visitation by these three spirits, but
because of the generous bounty of conflicting emotions Sim reveals throughout
his performance, sometimes for only a moment or two, but for which there never has
been, and arguably never will be another to equal it. In the final analysis, Scrooge succeeds not as the traditional ‘feel good’ holiday film,
but as a morality play of timeless and universal appeal; its lessons hard
taught and even harder learnt by a mostly unapologetic man made to rediscover
his own humanity.
VCI Home
Entertainment has re-released Scrooge
on Blu-ray for its 60th Anniversary in 2011. Previously the company
put out an ‘emerald edition’ DVD and
Blu-ray that left much to be desired. But the 60th Anniversary
yields a gorgeous 1080p transfer, mostly crisp and with a startling amount of
clarity and fine detail throughout. The gray scale is beautifully rendered with
exceptional tonality. Fine details pop and film grain is very accurately
reproduced. On occasion, the image becomes slightly soft, mostly during SFX
shots where the ghostly apparitions appear as transparencies against solid backgrounds.
This, however, is negligible and mostly forgivable. We also get a minute hint
of edge enhancement. It’s not terribly distracting, but it’s there and shouldn’t
be! The audio is mono and presented at an acceptable listening level.
VCI has packed
this disc with extras: several extensive featurettes chronicling the gestation,
history, and making of the movie; a brief retrospective on Alastair Sim’s
career, an in-depth critique with historian Christopher Fraeling, an audio
commentary and trailers to boot. Truly, a joyous stocking stuffer for the
holidays. One pet peeve: VCI precedes this presentation with an interminably long preview of other titles available from them that CANNOT be fast forwarded or skipped. Dumb and annoying! Bottom line: highly recommended!
FILM
RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
4
VIDEO/AUDIO
4
EXTRAS
3.5
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