Good, better, and best humbugs

A blogger named Woolgatherer has rated the Scrooge performances he's seen over the years, inspiring me to do the same. One of the pleasures of watching the movie and TV versions of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is seeing how each one differs. Each actor who plays Scrooge has to play a mean and stingy villain in the beginning and then undergo a credible redeeming change into a life-embracing, Christmas-loving softie by the end. But each actor usually finds some small way to make the part his or her own. My own favorite is the 1951 British film with Alistair Sim, officially titled Scrooge, but called A Christmas Carol in America; almost "film noirish" in tone, it's dark and creepy as befits a ghost story, and Sim makes a wonderful Scrooge, not melodramatically wicked but hard and cold and greedy, and his backstory gets fleshed out a bit more here than in other versions. He is equally fine as the transformed do-gooder, leaping and singing to himself with abandon. Mervyn Johns and Hermione Baddley are excellent Cratchits. The spirits are OK, and, as with most versions, the less said about Tiny Tim, the better. (It's not usually the fault of child actors--it's basically an impossible role to do well.)

My second favorite is the 1984 TV version with George C. Scott. The visual production is outstanding, not so much dark, but snowy and misty. Scott throws more of his actorly weight into the role, which leads to his almost (but not quite) going over the top on occasion. He is better as the mean Scrooge, but still does a nicely nuanced turn after he turns warm-hearted, and is especially good in the final scene with Bob Cratchit (well played by David Warner). I don't care much for Angela Pleasance as the Ghost of Christmas Past, but Edward Woodward makes the best Christmas Present ever: realistically larger-than-life, jolly yet able to scold Scrooge when needed (all the more impressive when you realize he's scolding George C. Scott and holding his own).

Third is the 1938 MGM production with Reginald Owen, a reliable supporting actor who specialized in stiff-upper-lip Brits in American films of the 30's and 40's--toward the end of his career, he was Admiral Boom in Mary Poppins. This version is the shortest and has the lightest touch and probably the biggest budget, leading to a nice glossy look which is pleasing even if it works against the gloomy ghostly aspects of the story. Owen is fine, even if he doesn't truly make the part his own. What makes this version a little different is that Bob Cratchit seems to get almost as much screen time as Scrooge. Gene Lockhart shines in the role (pictured above), especially in a long scene in the beginning in which, while horsing around with some children in the streets, he knocks Scrooge's hat off his head with a snowball.

Those are my top 3. I also like the 70's TV movie An American Christmas Carol with Henry Winkler as a mean landlord foreclosing on a handful of families during a Depression-era Christmas. The animated Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, in which the nearly blind actor Magoo plays Scrooge in a theatrical production, is surprisingly serious for much of its running time, confining the humor to the bits of Magoo crashing into things offstage. Like Woolgatherer, I am not a fan of the Bill Murray Scrooged, a modern updating of the story--nice idea, but it falls flat, and Murray's final improvised speech is the most cringe-worthy moment in mainstream Hollywood cinema, bar none. There's a 1935 British version with Seymour Hicks who made a specialty of playing Scrooge on stage for most of his career, but the public domain versions I've seen of it are incomplete and murky. The Muppet and Mickey Mouse versions have not stayed with me, so I guess they are ripe for rediscovery.

Cable TV versions really should get their own entry, as there seem to be at least one or two new ones popping up every year. The only ones that stand out to me are Ebbie and A Diva's Christmas Carol, with Susan Lucci and Vanessa Williams respectively as female Scrooge figures, and a cute variation called Karroll's Christmas with Tom Everett Scott as a man to whom the three Christmas ghosts appear by accident--they were supposed to visit his cranky neighbor, Wallace Shawn. Robert Zemeckis is working on an animated version for 2009, but if it winds up anything like the dreadful Polar Express, I won't be in line to see it.