Bah, Humbug and All That

Posted by Robert Stein
December 23, 2007

Scrooge If he wrote “A Christmas Carol” today, Charles Dickens might take flak for insidiously promoting a welfare state that could lead to higher taxes and SCHIP programs for the likes of Tiny Tim.But after more than a century and a half, Scrooge and his ghosts will be all over TV this week without protest, except from lovers of the classic who feel strongly about the dozens of movies based on it.

Christmas eve, TCM will be showing the 1938 MGM version, which ranks high in memory, with an asterisk to protest liberties taken with the plot, including Bob Cratchit heaving a snowball at Scrooge and being fired before the holiday (always a touch of Andy Hardy in the Louis B. Mayer era).

You’ll have to check local stations or Blockbuster because no network showing is scheduled for arguably the best, a 1951 darkly beautiful British tour de force with Alastair Sim, a grand actor who was born to play Scrooge, or for my Yuletide guilty pleasure, the 1970 musical with Albert Finney.

With an undistinguished score (we’re not talking Stephen Sondheim here), the singing and dancing somehow seem just right for a tale to lift our hearts and make believing children of us all. Peopled with great actors–Edith Evans, Kenneth More and Alec Guinness as the campiest Jacob Marley ever–it’s a thing of visual beauty, culminating in a joyous scene of dancing, bell-ringing celebrants against a snowy background that is pure Breughel.

There have been “Christmas Carols” by all the icons of pop culture from Mickey Mouse and the Jetsons to Star Trek’s Patrick Stewart and the Muppets and, in 2009, there will be a live action-computer graphic version with Jim Carrey as Scrooge and all three ghosts.

So take your choice and Bah, Humbug and Merry Christmas to all.

Cross-posted from my blog.

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Viscount LaCarte 2 years ago 1 point
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My vote for the best portrayal of Scrooge (though perhaps not the finest production) goes to George C. Scott.

More here.

Or just watch some of it
here.

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Tom Watson 2 years ago 1 point
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I am partial to the Mr. Magoo version, starring Jim Backus.

We just watched the 80s George C. Scott version and it's very faithful to the text, perhaps the most so.

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Viscount LaCarte 2 years ago 1 point
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We'll be watching that one tonight. I love it.

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Lance Mannion 2 years ago 1 point
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Someday, when the technology can make it seamless, I'd like to see a version made up of the best of all of them...

Alistair Sim as Scrooge with the Cratchitts from the Albert Finney version and Edward Woodward as the Ghost of Christmas Present from the George C. Scott version and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come from that one too---I like the way his bones creak and Alec Guinness as Marley's Ghost.

And from the Magoo version, the razzleberry dressing.

I hope you all have the Lord's bright blessing, and knowing we're together, knowing we're together heart and hand, and you have the whitest Christmas, the lightest, brightest Christmas, a Christmas far more glorious than grand!

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Karen 2 years ago 1 point
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I really am partial to the Mr Magoo version.

But I saw the Patrick Stewart one-man show on Broadway back in the mid-'90s. What a tour-de-force! And it addressed exactly the point you make in your first paragraph. He was doing it right around the time of Gingrich's Contract with America, and when he got to the line, "Are there no workhouses?" he got just a huge reaction from the audience. It really IS a subversive text for a modern consumer corporate Christmas.

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