Here is a fun little sequence that shows what the movie is like. Seriously, check it out.
A while back there was an Irvine Welsh story (“The Granton Star Cause”), later adapted for screen, involving a guy who gets abused by a lot of people and then runs into God, who is a mad Scottish drunk, who turns him into a fly. He gives all his bullies food poisoning.
Just a ripoff of The Crow.
“There ain’t no comin’ back!”
Agreed! (FYI, technically its title is Scrooge.)
Ugh. I had never seen it, so we watched it the other day, based on recommendations here. It is awful, and I was a fan of The Muppet Show, so predisposed to like it. It was the first project after Jim Henson died, and it shows.
We quit after about 30 minutes.
Best b/w: Alistair Sim
Best color: George C Scott
Best animated: Mr. Magoo
Best with puppets: Muppets Christmas Carol
I believe I saw this version being riffed, during a Rifftrax live show. It produced the single loudest and longest laughter I think I’ve ever heard in a theater.
Last night, I watched the original Pink Panther, possibly for the first time. I think maybe I remembered the skiing scenes and I recall Clouseau and the globe in one of the opening scenes, but nothing else seemed familiar. I was very surprised at one line during the costume ball melee - Clouseau was on the floor clutching a snake and a woman dressed like Cleopatra grabbed it and said “Keep your dirty, filthy hands off my asp!” 
That seems a bit wild for 1963.
I generally agree with this – Alistair Sim is classic. George C. Scott is, I think, underappreciated in his role as Scrooge, possibly because he doesn’t look the part – but he is great in it. And I was brung up on Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (the first version of the story ever saw).
But my vote for overall best is the Robert Zemeckis/ Jim Carrey version. Despite the overdone slapstick, it is by far the most faithful to the book, including lots of bits and touches most people will never notice, and recreating the original illustrations even better than the Richard Williams/Chuck Jones animated version from 1970. This is the only version in which the Ghost of Christmas Past approaches Dickens’ vision (which John Leech didn’t even try to draw in the original).
I watched it again recently, of course.
Magoo is a forgotten classic. The Scrooge story is splendidly told in about 53 minutes and includes a wonderful score and songs written by Bob Merrill and Jule Styne, no slouches in the world of writing songs for musicals. They weren’t just throwaways. They are great songs. “Winter Was Warm” can still bring a tear to my eyes. The voice actors were top-notch: Jim Backus, Jack Cassidy, Paul Frees, Morey Amsterdam and Jane Kean among them.
Beware edited versions that eliminate the “Broadway” opening and closings sequences and “Winter Was Warm,” inexplicably.
There has been a recent re-release of a restored version. A book on the making of the special (with lots of illustrations and information on cut segments) came out five years ago:
One hing that not even the most restored version I’ve seen has is the little extra “billboard” for Timex watches (who sponsored the special) that shows up after the opening credits
Best with Bionics: The $6M Man A Bionic Christmas Carol (1976)
Best with AM Radio: WKRP Bah Humbug (1980)
Best with actual time travel: Dr Who A Christmas Carol (2010)
Best set before Christ: A Flinstones Christmas Carol (1994)
Best with porn: Beavis and Butthead Huh huh Humbug (1995)
Best with Shakespeare: Upstart Crow, A Crow Christmas Carol (2018)
Disagree. Best b/w is Reginald Owens in 1938.
I’ve wondered about that. In Alastair Sim, GoCP is an old man; in George C Scott it’s a woman; in Magoo and Muppets it’s a kind of fairy/sprite.
I mean, trying to portray the actual Dickens GoCP in a pre-CGI movie would be quite an ask.
It was a strange figure—like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.
Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.
I like the Jim Carrey one a lot, but I think the Muppet one is my favorite. To be fully honest, I haven’t seen many iterations of it.
I noticed that, too, because I saw that film shortly after reading the story. One such detail I think I recall correctly: very early on there’s a line in the book about a beggar and his dog hurrying away from Scrooge as he walks home. It’s there in that film. (I think I may have seen it in one other version, too, but don’t remember which.)
Not a big deal, doesn’t affect the story at all, but it’s a tiny touch that Dickens chose to add that Zemeckis decided to include as well.
It is in the Alastaire Sim version, at least.
Thanks. I should have remembered that my favorite had it, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. Maybe time to watch again.
Chariots of the Gods 1970
I was curious how well this pseudscience held up. It grossed almost 26 million. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
That lead to a lot of interest and speculation in the 70’s.
Even Leonard Nimoy did In Search Of… a few years later.
Time hasn’t been kind. 
The earnest narration is pretty dry compared to the alien stuff The History Channel produces.