Christmas Carol, A (DVD)
APPROX. 69 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 1938 - MPA RATING: NR
" The movie is nothing if not sincere, which goes a long way in a sentimental tale like this one.
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It's pretty hard to make a bad movie out of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," the story has such wonderful characters, settings, themes, and sentiment. How perennial a favorite is it? The Internet Movie Database lists forty-eight different versions (big screen, television, cartoon, musical, etc.) of the classic from 1910 through 2005. Has any other single work of fiction been brought to the screen more often?
Anyway, this one from MGM in 1938 is among the most famous. It's not my favorite, mind you; that would be the 1951 English version, technically titled "Scrooge," with Alastair Sim, which is one of the most faithful adaptations of Dickens' short novel. But MGM's "A Christmas Carol" with Reginald Owen holds up pretty well, too, despite some liberties with the plot and characters, and its infectious Christmas spirit remains hard to resist.
In the unlikely event you've forgotten, the story deals with a miserly old grump named Ebenezer Scrooge (Owen), who is visited on Christmas Eve by four spirits: the ghost of his long-dead partner, Jacob Marley (Leo G. Carroll), and the spirits of Christmas Past (Ann Rutherford), Christmas Present (Lionel Braham), and Christmas Future (D'Arcy Corrigan). The spirits persuade him to turn away from greed and ill temper for a life of love and sharing. It's a sweet moral lesson that economically conveys the meaning of Christmas in a few short minutes.
Yet, apparently, the powers that be at MGM were not convinced that a solitary, irritable old man could carry an entire picture, even one so brief as this (it's only sixty-nine minutes long). As a result, we see the characters of Scrooge's nephew Fred and Scrooge's clerk Bob Cratchit getting a lot more screen time than the Dickens story would admit. Barry Mackay ably plays Fred as an irrepressibly happy chap who is engaged to a lovely young woman and enjoys merrily sliding and playing in the snow like a schoolboy. Never mind that Dickens has him already married and showing up for only a moment at the beginning and end of the narrative. As for Bob Cratchit, played by Gene Lockhart, he's practically the star of the show. We see almost as much of him and his wife (played by Lockhart's real-life wife, Kathleen Lockhart) and family as we do of Scrooge. And as if Cratchet's being kept poor by his employer and having a crippled and dying child, Tiny Tim (Terry Kilburn), weren't bad enough, the screenwriters add to Dickens by making Cratchet's situation even worse: Scrooge fires him on Christmas Eve!
Oddly, while the script expands the Fred and Cratchit roles, it excludes a number of characters and scenes from Scrooge's past, like his ex-fiancée, who is never mentioned at all, and old Fezziwig's party, which is bypassed. Oh, well. I was also slightly troubled by the Spirit of Christmas Past, played by the comely Ann Rutherford. In the book, this is a male ghost, neither young nor old but both at once, who radiates a glow from within. Mr. Rutherford is merely beautiful.
But I quibble. The Ghosts of Christmas Present and Future are properly traditional and Dickens-like, and director Edwin L. Marin ("A Study in Scarlet," "Christmas Eve") well conveys the essence of the Dickens story. It may be a lightweight "Christmas Carol," but MGM and Marin got the general mood right. I especially like Leo G. Carroll, whose hangdog countenance is perfect for the woebegone Marley, as well as liking some of the Dickens humor. When Marley tells Scrooge he's going to be visited by three more apparitions, Scrooge replies, "Couldn't I take all of them at once and have it over?"
