Dec 6 - Shower of Stars Presents: A Christmas Carol (1954)

Here's the second TV presentation, not much better than 1949's though. I'm writing this a coupled days after watching it and it's hard to remember much to say. And not just because my life currently is a dizzying blur of black and white Victorian grumps and crippled kids, it's just incredibly bland. All I recollect very clearly are the bad points.

Number one, it's called a musical adaptation, but the musical aspect here is just random breaks in the story so we can watch a choir on a London street sing a random carol for 4 minutes. or watch Scrooge and Belle stop the show to sing a song to the camera like we're watching a Bing Crosby special. I'm not sure if diagetic is the right snooty, filmy-type word I'm looking for...but it's not a musical in the sense of characters singing about their inner thoughts or a Greek chorus providing exposition. It's just characters in a show singing songs sometime. Total waste of time. It's dumb. So naturally, the whole thing feels very rushed and unfulfilling.

Oh, and besides wasting precious airtime on songs, since this was on TV, there's a Chrysler commercial in the middle of the show where they sincerely try to force a meaningful connection between the story and why you should rush out and order a car in time for Christmas.

Scrooge is kinda okay in this, so I won't banish it all the way down,

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1. A Christmas Carol (1951)
2. A Christmas Carol (1938)
3. Scrooge (1935)
4. A Christmas Carol (1910)
5. Shower of Stars: A Christmas Carol (1954)
6. Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost (1901)
7. The Christmas Carol (1949)

Dec 5 - A Christmas Carol (1951)

I've really been looking forward to this one. Prior to this little experiment, it's actually been several years since I've seen any Christmas Carol, but in my slightly fuzzy memories this one sits proudly on the top of the heap as my favorite version. It's the one I watched in middle school after reading the book in English class. There's warm memories of seeing it in those delirious days before Christmas break started. Possible unfair nostalgia aside, it is very highly regarded by others, including high-falutin' film reviewer types...so I'm not completely off base.

It held up remarkably well. I'm realizing now that eventually, theoretically, I'll reach a point where I won't have anything new to say about the latest movie I've watched. It'll be a patchwork of previously made points and criticisms. It's harder and harder to make as many unique notes and observations. I'm not quite there yet, but with a divine adaptation like this one I'm getting closer. Succeeding posts could just be "This part was done well, like in 1951. They missed this point that 1951 nailed."

So. Let's see...okay...it looks gorgeous. That strikes you immediately. The lighting is incredible and creates a look that gives this one a very unique "personality"..which is saying something among a dozen other black and white, gloomy London set movies. Watching this you realize how flat and lazier the cinematography in other versions was. The contrast is so deep without destroying any details. I'd love to see this one on Blu-Ray.

Alastair Sim is amazing as Scrooge. More than any others thus far, at the beginning of the movie he feels unhinged. The look in his eyes and his expressions paint him as not just a grumpy man, not just bitter, but someone who has been divorced from humanity for so long that he's on a different plane.

Marley's appearance is fantastic. The sound design and acting is just as chilling as I remembered. Finally, one of my favorite lines made it into Scrooge's dialogue in its entirety. I've personally never had indigestion related hallucinations, but I suppose eating a bite of underdone potato might've been a much scarier experience in mid-19th century England than it is now, I dunno...but I've always loved when Scrooge is trying to dismiss Marley as a bad dream, just a result of some tummy trouble and he says, "There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!" Very cute and clever line, Chuck.

I've talked about the difficulty in making Scrooge's redemption feel complete and honest and earned, and this is the most successful job so far. The Christmas Past segment is quite long and provides ample reasoning behind how Ebenezer became who we first meet. Knowing how crucial this segment is to the arc, a few new flashbacks are included to flesh his background out. We see that his sister Fan died on or around Christmas. We see some seeds of greed being planted and sowed while working with Fezziwig and later when he first meets and works with Jacob Marley. Just a few more minutes spent in his youth helps him feel so much more real and his personality more justifiable.

The next two ghost visits are done very well, but hard to say much more about them compared to other movies. The Past segment is done so well in this case, that the other two being very faithful is about all I can really remember. I will reiterate that, upon getting to visit other locations and peek into the Cratchit's or Fred Scrooge's home or the "pawn shop"?...I don't know what exactly the location is at the end where all the people are trying to hock Scrooge's stuff after he died, the grimy look of London is perfect. I feel like washing my hands just thinking about it. None of the fakey, far too clean look that plagued some earlier adaptations.

The glaring flaw with this one for me is when at the end as Scrooge wakes up, realizing he is alive and well, he asks the hosuekeeper what day it was and not the boy walking outside. For a movie that nailed so many of the iconic moments that are burned into out collective pop culture brain, they screwed this up.

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1. A Christmas Carol (1951)
2. A Christmas Carol (1938)
3. Scrooge (1935)
4. A Christmas Carol (1910)
5. Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost (1901)
6. The Christmas Carol (1949)

Dec 4 - The Christmas Carol (1949)

Vincent Price is a quasi-narrator for this television adaptation that bounces between actors and Price reading to the audience from the novel between each stave. It really isn't that great. The best quality is that it's only a half hour since it was made for TV.

Remember that last post when I talked about scenes having breathing room and characters feeling like humans? Yeah, that's all gone. The forgettable actors recite the lines quickly without any emotion and weight behind the words. Humor falls flat, Scrooge speaks in an annoying tremulous manner to everyone, whether he's being curt, frightened or giddy. The whole thing feels like a high school assignment from the apathetic group of students who have, technically, successfully slapped together a quick movie and can get their A for participation.

This one goes straight to the bottom. The short silent films, while not terrifically entertaining, are historically fascinating and easy to recommend watching once. This one is thoroughly skippable.

1. A Christmas Carol (1938)
2. Scrooge (1935)
3. A Christmas Carol (1910)
4. Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost (1901)
5. The Christmas Carol (1949)

Dec 3 - A Christmas Carol (1938)

Okay, now it's starting to get interesting since it's possible to genuinely compare and contrast the adaptations. This is a very good one, it stumbles in a couple areas but it's an improvement over Scrooge (1935) in several ways.

Best of all is characters are fleshed out a little more and feel more real. Scenes have more breathing room and appear like actual interactions with real humans and not just actors hammering through dialogue without much sincerity behind the delivery or proper reactions. When Scrooge suggests that Christmas revelers should be boiled in pudding, Fred is horrified and it's not just a silly line that gets shrugged off in an instant. Fred is the real hero of this adaptation, he's given some more screen time as a kind of bridge between Ebenezer's current bitter, isolated state and the younger man he was. A reminder of the most powerful love he has probably ever felt, for Fred's mother and Scrooge's sister-Fan. A love that died long ago. Most adaptations seem to focus too heavily on Bob and Tim Cratchit and overlook Fred's importance in the story of Scrooge's redemption.

Speaking of Fan, this is the first time we see Scrooge as a child during the first ghost's visit. A boy abandoned away at school by a father who saw his education more important than forming or maintaining strong familial bonds. No other movies thus far have conveyed very well why Scrooge might have turned out how he did, judging from the information they give the audience, you'd just assume Scrooge's first words were bah and humbug.

Unfortunately, the Ghost of Christmas Past fails to remind Scrooge of Belle, his one-time fiancee who left Scrooge when it became clear that his money was more beloved than she was. Even in the novel, there's not a lot explaining the transition between being a young homesick man who loves his family and the greedy miser who slowly forces all of his non-business relations away. So to lose Belle and this significant piece of his puzzle is disappointing. In most of the adaptations, I don't think the redemption comes across as very real, it just kinda happens because it has to. Surely Scrooge has a concept of what being poor is. And he knows he is generally despised by the world and will die alone. But the ghosts show him a quick peek into the Cratchit home and his own gravestone and he flips out like they're the most knee-buckling revelations in the history of the world. Scrooge isn't a dumb or oblivious character who doesn't realize how isolated he has made himself with his personality or fails to understand how the world and economy works...someone like that could be won over by a fly-on-the-wall glimpse into how people talk about him. Scrooge's redemption needs a little more work to feel truly earned. They don't nail it here, but they get close.

The Past segment does, however, get a million points for being sure to include a scene with the character who has perhaps the best surname in all of fiction, young Scrooge's employer Mr. Fezziwig.

Backtracking some now that the Fred thread I was on has kinda wrapped up... back to the first ghost. Jacob Marley is really well done here. Head bandaged up and dragging chains just like he should be. His cacophonous entry is exactly as harsh and unsettling as it should be. The production values are very high. Lots of camera movement and some inventive, Citizen Kane-esque shots. The special effects are wonderful, at one moment with Marley, Scrooge walks around and in front of the transparent ghost...very well done for the time.

The production value in some ways is almost too high, though. It no longer feels like a filmed play since the sets are more expansive than in earlier movies, but they also feel flatter and too clean and shiny. No one feels very poverty stricken. The Cratchits have a large home and cavort in matching, brilliant white dressing gowns. Bob Cratchit is a fairly fat fellow, which doesn't seem right at all. So some of those details, which seem like they should be obvious catches, are overlooked and hurt the final score.

Worth noting is while this version is only an hour long, they felt the need to invent some scenes. There's a near-subplot where Fred likes sliding on the icy sidewalks and breaking distance records. And after leaving Scrooge's on Christmas Eve, Bob Cratchit joins in snowball throwing with some children on the street, hits Scrooge as he walks home and is fired. It's a small addition that really doesn't change much in the overall story, so I don't know why it was worth shoehorning in.

Lastly, there are some awkward, oddly sexual scenes with the Cratchits that struck me as funny. After Cratchit arrives home he makes all the children dig in his pockets like a gaze of rabid raccoons for the chestnuts he just bought. When the children first see the hot goose laid on the dinner table, they're transfixed with looks that can only be described as lustful. And Tiny Tim, speaking before he can catch himself, says, "I..I want to stroke it..." Very strange.

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1. A Christmas Carol (1938)
2. Scrooge (1935)
3. A Christmas Carol (1910)
4. Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost (1901)

Dec 2 - Scrooge (1935)

This is the first feature-length, sound adaptation. It was a pretty fine job, I was ready for the earlier ones to be rough or boring, but I was pretty entertained. The direction was interesting and creative. The cinematography was good, it feels very grimy and smoky but never murky and hard to follow. I like this Bob Cratchit and it was the first time we really get a Tiny Tim, and he was pretty sad and sympathetic. Music was used sparingly but effectively.

It wasn't perfect, I didn't love Scrooge, he often came across more than a little hammy, theater actor-ish. Certainly after seeing the special effects pulled off in the silent versions, not actually seeing most of the ghosts was quite strange. Jacob Marley appears as a face on the door knocker, but not in full body form when talking with Scrooge. The camera "follows" an invisible Marley as he interacts with a few things in Scrooge's room and speaks to him. No broken jaw, no chains. Lame. The ghost of Christmas Past is a white smear, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a black smear, only the Ghost of Christmas Present is an actual human in costume standing next to Scrooge. Many of the great, memorable lines from the novel and later movies aren't included.

But all in all, a surprisingly great start. I'll be curious to see how the movies I'm more familiar with compare to these first time watches, right now they all kinda feel exactly the same in my head and I'm wondering how unique they'll end up. I also think I might go insane after a few weeks of this.

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It's not phenomenal but it's easily better than the silent movies. It's light competition right now and I suspect it will hover around the bottom of the list as it grows.

1. Scrooge (1935)
2. A Christmas Carol (1910)
3. Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost (1901)

Dec 1 - The Silent Films

Since they are only a few minutes each, I thought I'd knock out the whole silent era in one post...

Gotta start at the very beginning. This is the earliest found adaptation of the story. It's odd, kinda hard to follow. And not just because the film no longer exists in its complete form and we only have about half of the scenes. The director relied almost entirely on the familiarity with the novel to tell the story, there are only a few intertitles and they are only here to setup the proceeding scene in the most basic ways. No dialog or extra exposition. We only have Scrooge's over-the-top arm acting to understand that this is apparently a harrowing evening. It's not great film making to be so dependent on the source material. If you found some poor soul who'd been trapped under a rock on a deserted island since the 1840s and plopped them down in front of this movie, they'd be lost.

Like a ton of silent films, especially from this early, it feels very "stagey". No camera movements and flat, painted sets. It's interesting that Marley is the only ghost, handling all the duties of exploring the past, present and future himself. I guess costuming could only afford the one white sheet, so they had to get clever. I'm being a tad harsh...there are some genuinely impressive special effects to show Scrooge's memories and he and Marley visiting the Cratchit's home.

Watch it on YouTube.

Nine years later, the film makers at Edison Studios, no longer content with recording frumpy people kiss or sneeze, decided to take a stab at A Christmas Carol. Only a few years later and not much longer than Marley's Ghost but it's an exponentially more successful adaptation. The sets look terrific, special effects are top-notch, and the acting is great.

For being so short, it surprisingly manages to hit the iconic elements that we are familiar with from seeing all of the feature length movies. All the ghosts are present, Marley's got his chains, Scrooge does a goofy, giddy dance on Christmas morning. I don't know if the occasion where you just GOT to watch A Christmas Carol but you only have a few minutes and you have to keep quiet will come up often...but if it does watch this one. Unless you're some insane person with a blog trying to watch a couple dozen versions for no good reason, you aren't missing anything by skipping the 1901 movie.

Watch it on YouTube.

There are at least two more silent films, one from in between these two and one from 1913. The latter I especially wish I could find as the actor who plays Scrooge plays him again in a talkie version in 1935, which I'll be watching soon. It'd be neat to see how he handled the role decades earlier and in the silent format.

Oh, I forgot to mention yesterday, I'm going to be ranking these as I go so I can see what cream rises to the top...

1. A Christmas Carol (1910)
2. Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost (1901)

25 Days of A Christmas Carol!!

Since my Halloween experiment a few years ago, I'd been trying to think of another project of a similar vein. Some concept or theme that made it easy to generate a bunch of daily posts.

Doing something for another holiday sounded fun. I've always enjoyed A Christmas Carol, probably because until A Nightmare Before Christmas it was the spookiest Christmas story out there and it was a good loophole to get a few more ghosts in after October. And since it has achieved pop culture tenure and seemingly any approach by any creative team will get approved and rushed into production, I would have more than enough to keep me busy until the 25th.

I don't know why exactly there are, on average, 4.3 adaptations released each and every year, but it means there's quite the variety to choose from and that's nice. I'm sure by the time I get through my tenth stuffy, sooty faithful adaptation I'll be glad to break up the monotony with some goofy pastiche. I'm going to be lenient with eligible entries. I could probably scrape up twenty-five feature length, straight faced retellings but I'm also allowing TV specials and reimaginings that might alter the setting or exact character lineup but keeps the classic narrative backbone of "jerk learns how to not be a jerk".

Some I've seen several times before but most will be first time(and last) viewings...and I'll be up front with you, it might get weird. It's truly remarkable how many options you really have when you say, "I think I wanna watch A Christmas Carol tonight." When you remake something dozens of times, you're bound to end up in some strange places occasionally.