Film: Your Fave "A Christmas Carol"?

I'm reading the book right now, at night, in between the FECC fires. Wonderful, after a few years: you can SEE everything Dickens writes, HEAR the sounds, SMELL the smells, FEEL the cold of London of olde! (And I'm sure you can taste that turkey! The one he bought for Bob Cratchit and family.)

But, this evening, I watched G. C. Scott as Scrooge, and am now watching Reginald Owen, in a way earlier one. I've tended to prefer Owen to any of 'em.

That's not all. What's your favorite Scrooge, or favorite film rendition overall?

Scrooge; or, Marley's Ghost (1901), a short British film that is the earliest surviving screen adaptation.
A Christmas Carol (1908), with Thomas Ricketts as Scrooge.
A Christmas Carol (1910) is a 10-minute silent version of the film starring Marc McDermott as Scrooge and Charles Ogle as Cratchit.
Scrooge (1913), starring Sir Seymour Hicks and retitled Old Scrooge for its U.S. release in 1926.
A Christmas Carol (1914), with Charles Rock as Scrooge.
The Right to Be Happy (1916), the first feature-length adaptation, directed by and starring Rupert Julian as Scrooge. Now presumed lost.
A Christmas Carol (1923), produced in the UK and starring Russell Thorndike, Nina Vanna, Jack Denton, and Forbes Dawson.
Scrooge (1935), a British movie, again starring Seymour Hicks as Scrooge, rather notorious for not showing most of the ghosts onscreen.[7]
A Christmas Carol (1938), starring Reginald Owen as Scrooge and Gene Lockhart and Kathleen Lockhart as the Cratchits.
Leyenda de Navidad (1947), a Spanish adaptation starring Jesús Tordesillas as Scrooge.
Scrooge (1951), re-titled A Christmas Carol in the U.S., starring Alastair Sim as Scrooge and Mervyn Johns and Hermione Baddeley as the Cratchits. According to critic A. O. Scott of The New York Times, this film is the best one ever made of this Dickens classic.[8]
It's Never Too Late (1953), Italian adaptation of Dickens's novel, featuring Paolo Stoppa and Marcello Mastroianni.
Scrooge (1970), a musical film adaptation starring Albert Finney as Scrooge and Alec Guinness as Marley's Ghost.
A Christmas Carol (1971), an Oscar-winning animated short film by Richard Williams, with Alastair Sim reprising the role of Scrooge.
Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983), an animated short film featuring the various Walt Disney characters with Scrooge McDuck playing the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, Mickey Mouse as Bob Cratchit and Goofy as Jacob Marley.
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), featuring the various Muppet characters, with Michael Caine as Scrooge and Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit.
A Christmas Carol (1994), an animated version produced by Jetlag Productions, written by Jack Olesker.
A Christmas Carol (1997), an animated production featuring the voice of Tim Curry as Scrooge as well as the voices of Whoopi Goldberg, Michael York and Ed Asner.
Christmas Carol: The Movie (2001), an animated version produced by Illuminated Films (Christmas Carol), Ltd/The Film Consortium/MBP; screenplay by Robert Llewellyn & Piet Kroon; with the voices of Simon Callow, Kate Winslet, and Nicolas Cage.
A Christmas Carol (2006), a computer animated adaptation featuring anthropomorphic animals in the lead roles.
A Christmas Carol (2009), a performance capture film directed by Robert Zemeckis, and starring Jim Carrey as Ebenezer Scrooge and the three ghosts, from Walt Disney Pictures and ImageMovers Digital. It was released in November 2009 in Disney Digital 3D.

I believe they left out George C. Scott! (It was a TV movie, but still!)

Only a few are the classic renditions, but some may have another favorite from childhood.

rjm

Last edited by rjm on Mon Dec 17, 2012 11:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

The Reginald Owen version is my favorite. So dark and sinister. Think the later film noir.

Yet, I do appreciate the George C. Scott version. Beautiful film.

Whatever keeps Dickens' work -- and the message -- alive, works for me. God bless us -- EVERY ONE!

Whoah! Time to end this thread. Alistair Sim. To suggest otherwise is humbug.

Alistair Sim in the 1951 film
or Lee Majors as Steve Austin in the Six Million Dollar Man episode based on A Christmas Carol

Alastair Sim.

I started counting, so I realized: it should be a poll!

And so it 'tis! Merry Christmas!

rjm

Scrooge (1970),

The one i grew up with

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It had to be the Alastair Sim one from the fifties for me !

There's even a colourised version of it !

I recently saw the 1938 one on TV & Bob Cratchit & his family lived in a rather nice house !

Not how it's normally depicted !

My fav is the 1951 Christmas carol , but i also like the 1970 albert finny version and the 1935 british Scrooge. Plus an animated one from around 1969-70 part of the famous classic tales shown on CBS. Also gotta throw in House without a Christmas tree!

I have to say Alistair Sim too, but then that's the one I grew up with on TV etc.

However, both of Seymour Hick's performances (1913 and 1935) are well worth a watch. Sadly the silent version only floats around in a dodgy print, but the 1935 sound version is really very good - and much better than Owen's version three years later, in my opinion.

Have to say Alistair Sim but I really enjoy the George C. Scott version too.

I like the Scott version best, particularly as it relates to the nephew, with believe it or not, the Finney version in second although that's over the top in spots.

A sentimental favorite of mine is Scrooge with Albert Finney because that was the first Christmas Carol film I have ever seen.
Alastair Sim is the best!

I have to say Alistair Sim too, but then that's the one I grew up with on TV etc.

However, both of Seymour Hick's performances (1913 and 1935) are well worth a watch. Sadly the silent version only floats around in a dodgy print, but the 1935 sound version is really very good - and much better than Owen's version three years later, in my opinion.

Might like to see it then! Hmm. I left it off the list because I didn't include silent ones (as these versions of the story are rarely if ever shown, or even generally available), and the other said they never showed the ghosts! The ghosts are cool.

I will have to look around for that one. Love these films. (Have to say that none of 'em beats the book, or novella, really. Dickens puts you IN the environment like few writers. It was almost as though he were writing a screenplay.)

So far, it looks like Sim, in a rout!

rjm

Alistair Sim for me. But I do enjoy the George C. Scott version. Just a few days ago, as I was watching the Sim version my wife said she couldn't see why it's so highly praised. She said she preferred the Patrick Stewart version. I came close to hurling a holly wreath at her frisbee style, but I managed to restrain myself. But it took every ounce of my willpower!

Alistair Sim for me. But I do enjoy the George C. Scott version. Just a few days ago, as I was watching the Sim version my wife said she couldn't see why it's so highly praised. She said she preferred the Patrick Stewart version. I came close to hurling a holly wreath at her frisbee style, but I managed to restrain myself. But it took every ounce of my willpower!

Stewart is a brilliant actor, and he wasn't at all bad. Saw it once.

But, better, he did a one-man-show: a live stage-play where he played all the parts, and it was really great! Wish it would come back to town. (Maybe it's on YouTube somewhere.) Here's an audio sample I found: http://www.sheeplaughs.com/scrooge/stewart.mp3

About the holly wreath, hope you have a merrier time than that! LOL!

rjm

Alistair Sim for me. But I do enjoy the George C. Scott version. Just a few days ago, as I was watching the Sim version my wife said she couldn't see why it's so highly praised. She said she preferred the Patrick Stewart version. I came close to hurling a holly wreath at her frisbee style, but I managed to restrain myself. But it took every ounce of my willpower!

Stewart is a brilliant actor, and he wasn't at all bad. Saw it once.

But, better, he did a one-man-show: a live stage-play where he played all the parts, and it was really great! Wish it would come back to town. (Maybe it's on YouTube somewhere.) Here's an audio sample I found: http://www.sheeplaughs.com/scrooge/stewart.mp3

About the holly wreath, hope you have a merrier time than that! LOL!

rjm

Rjm, I have nothing against Patrick Stewart. But my wife not appreciating the Sim version, then invoking Stewart as her favorite, well, that's practically sacriligious. As for the holly wreath bit, I was just kidding. If I tried that manuever my wife would take the star off the top of the Christmas tree and fling it at me like a ninja star!

Alastair Sim without even thinking.

He NAILS the Scrooge character!

I voted for Alastair Sims's film. Would love to see all the others eventually.

Ah...Dickens. Born 1812, alive forever.


Incidentally, how he spoke for all people was seen at his funeral. This, from Peter Ackroyd's biography, moves me everytime:

So, for those two days the crowds of people passed by in procession, many of them dropping flowers onto his coffin - "among which," his son said, "were afterwards found several small rough bouquets of flowers tied up with pieces of rag."

There, in the ragged bundles of flowers, no doubt picked from the hedgerows and fields, we see the source and emblem of Charles Dickens's authority. Even to the labouring men and women there was in his death a grievous sense of loss; they felt that he had in large measure understood them and that, in his death they had also lost something of themselves.