Year: 1970
Medium: Colour
Starring: Albert Finney, Alec Guinness, Edith Evans, Kenneth More
Directed by: Joseph Bowler
Length: 113 mins
Brief comments: I know this one very well. My sister loves it, and she had a VHS cassette she almost wore out watching, Christmas or not. It's the first colour adaptation, and even given the one above and the cartoon version, pretty much the first proper musical. I feel it will be hard to fault this in any area, but I've never watched it objectively before, so this will be interesting.
CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Well played by Finney, on both the grumpy side and the changed-man side. Sings well too. Probably worth an 8 here.
Marley: Sir Alec Guinness. Need I say more? A clear 10. Good visualisation and great acting, as you would expect. Not hammy in any way and quite true to the character in the story.
Cratchit: Annoyance factor doubled by the fact he
sings, but still ok I guess. 6
Tiny Tim: REALLY annoying! And he
sings in a
soprano. Ugh. But he plays the part well. 4
Others: Bob's friend Tom, who sings "Thank you very much" is a revelation, a young Gordon Jackson with hair! Gotta give him a 6 for his performance.
The Ghosts: Ghost of Christmas Past: Very well played as an elderly, no-nonsense woman. Scenes of his past are good. A solid 6
Ghost of Christmas Present: A sort of mixture of the classic ideal from the novel and the Jolly Green Giant. Like the idea of the milk of human kindness. Pretty great all around, except for the exclusion of Want and Ignorance at the end. A good 8 here
Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Good until they went and showed his skull-face, which while meant to be a shock was in fact nothing more than schlock, and battering you over the head --- look! He's a skeleton! Yeah, we guessed. Sorry, but that drops his rating down to 4.
Faithful to the novel: Mostly, but I have to take issue with the added-on bit at the end, where Scrooge actually ends up in Hell. Not in the story, and although it's clever and handled well, and we get to see Guinness again, it's unnecessary and seems tacked-on. Makes for a lower score than it should have got, and I can only muster 7 here.
Emotion level: Well, with a musical you're always going to have some, yes, but I wasn't all that particularly moved. Not as much as I was, for instance, with some of the less upbeat versions. So only 5 here.
Puke level: Other than Tiny Tim, there's nothing really, so for his sake I'll just throw in a little -2
Horror level: Nah, not really. The Hell scenes are done well but don't scare, the face of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is silly and Halloweenish, and there's no dividing of Scrooge's gear, which often adds the real horror element. A little too much concentrating on the songs and not so much on the actual story, so here there's a big fat zero.
Soundtrack: Well, what can you say? One of the best, if not the best ever soundtracks to a Scrooge movie. Great songs like “I hate people”, “Father Christmas”, the superb “Thank you very much” and the exuberant “I like life”. Solid 10 all round here.
So, total score then:
74
But with both Albert Finney and Alec Guinness in it that gives it an extra 10, plus a young Gordon Jackson and Roy Kinnear have cameos, so that's another five apiece, giving a
Grand Total of
94, highest score yet.
Year: 1938
Medium: Black-and-white
Starring: Reginald Owen, Gene Lockhart, Kathleen Lockhart, Barry MacKay
Directed by: Edwin L. Marin
Length: 69 mins
Brief comments: Considering this was the first time Hollywood really got a hold of the story, I don't feel they messed it up too much or put too much of a spin on it. They did add a few bits here and there and subtract others, which I'll detail later, but by and large this was probably one of the better versions I've seen so far, and I'm glad I shelled out the few bucks for the DVD. Was certainly worth waiting for.
CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Owen is perfect in the part; Scrooge is bent, withered, nasty and old. His transformation, unlike some others, is believable without being over the top, and you can actually see it happening gradually. Not perfect, but a good solid 8 certainly.
Marley: One of the best prior to Alec Guinness's defining portrayal of the melancholy ghost. For the time, the effects are good too: you can see through him, and he doesn't ham it up or go overboard. Very good all round. Another 8.
Cratchit: The least annoying of any of the portrayals of the clerk so far, bar none. I actually didn't hate him, and though the character is always something of a wimp he seemed to possess some sort of inner strength, a sense of defiance that none of the others did. I'll never I expect give a Cratchit a 10, but he definitely deserves a 9
Tiny Tim: Sorry, but the kid brings it all down again, though he's not quite so annoying. But it's hard to like him. I'll say a 6, to be kind.
Others: Fred is well played with great gusto and exuberance and Mrs Cratchit is something of a revelation. I think she and the actor who played Bob Cratchit are/were married in real life, as they both have the same surname. If so, their onscreen chemistry is explainable and very touching. 6 for Fred and 8 for Mrs C.
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: Holy crap she is stunningly gorgeous! Must have been a real heartbreaker in her day. Kind of reminds me, in her manner, of a good fairy godmother, though if they were all like this we'd everyone be crying to go to the ball! Got to give her a 9, easily.
The Ghost of Christmas Present: Very powerful, very direct and yet behind his booming laughter lies a note of reproach, not only to Scrooge but to men, who still try to fight in the street, even on Christmas! A good 7 for him.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Always hard to do anything with this figure, but he's okay. Just about. A 5, to be fair.
Faithful to the novel: Really, no. There are several departures from the story, including Scrooge sacking Cratchit (which never happened), Scrooge being so incensed about Marley's ghostly appearance that he calls up the Watch to scare him off (never happened either) and several omissions, such as the dividing up of Scrooge's belongings, Scrooge cutting short the trip with the Ghost of Christmas Past (which does happen, but is seldom shown) and again no Want or Ignorance, which was an aspect of the Ghost of Christmas Present that I felt always really grounded the character and made him more than a buffoon who enjoyed the finer things in life. All in all, I can really only award this a low 4.
Emotion level: Some, but not much really. 4 again.
Puke level: Zero
Horror level: Zero; the absence of the trio dividing up Scrooge's things leaves this with no real sense of horror, to me.
Soundtrack: Average. Say a 4. Nothing special.
So our total then is
78, another quite high score. No real extra factors to bump that score up though.
Year: 1971
Medium: Colour (Animated)
Starring: Alastair Sim
Directed by: Richard Williams
Length: 25 mins
Brief comments: The first of what would become a slew of animated versions of the story (I kind of don't count “Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol” as it was based in the world of an already-known cartoon icon; this was written completely separate to any other cartoon, although others that would follow, particularly “Mickey's Christmas Carol”, would use well-known cartoon characters as the basis for, and participants in the story. As a version it's short so quite abridged, and few characters speak really. Cratchit barely says a word, Fred has his visit at the beginning but that's about it, and the Ghosts do their bit (well, two of them: The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come never speaks), and generally it's almost a one-man show. It is quite rushed though, however I must admit the animation really gives the feel of something that could have been created in Dickens' time. Decent enough.
CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Can only really concentrate on him, as he has the lion's share of the lines (sorry) but although this is Alastair Sim reprising his role from the 1951 movie, I don't feel he does the character justice here, and it's a bit of a fuddle-headed, confused performance. Quite poor I have to say. A generous 4.
Marley: Quite scary and of course given that this is animated they can do some interesting things, such as making his mouth seem twice the size it should be. Good job on him really. A solid 7
Cratchit: Almost non-existent. Very poor. A low 3 for him.
Tiny Tim: Same. He's hardly in it at all. A very low 2
Others: n/a
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: A good representation, if a bit rushed. Score of 6
The Ghost of Christmas Present: Again very good, best of the three, and it includes the skeletal figures of Want and Ignorance, which I remember at the time scared the crap out of me, as they're meant to. For that, mostly, I give him a good score of 8
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Pretty standard. What can you do, after all, with a silent, ghostly hooded skeleton? 5.
Faithful to the novel: No. The story is shortened too much. What there is is faithful but there's so much left out or glossed over it has to get a low score. I know they were restricted, given the running time, but still, only a 4 here.
Emotion level: Zero
Puke level: Zero
Horror level: I would have said zero too, but the two figures of Want and Ignorance, especially as they awoke such terror in me as a child, have to rescue this and get it a decent 8.
Soundtrack: None really, so zero.
Total then is
47. Given that Sim reprises his role I would have awarded extra points, but the fact that he made such a dull, lifeless Scrooge second time around loses those points. The only other awards I can give is for the actual animation, which is really first class, so 7 for that, and the attendance of the legendary Chuck Jones gets it another 5, so the
Grand Total is then
69
So although all three scored quite highly in the end, we have a very clear winner. It's not that surprising, as it is acknowledged as generally one of the very best versions, and with a total score of
94 Albert Finney's 1970 musical blasts the competition to tatters and strides confidently and easily into the second round.